Girls Basketball: Balanced scoring leads Fremd past Schaumburg

Updated: December 2, 2011 8:26PM

Good things happen when you take good shots.

Junior guard Ashley McConnell scored 23 points, freshman Haley Gorecki added 17 points and five assists and 6-foot-1 senior Jessi Wiedermann added 13 points and six rebounds to lead No. 14 Fremd to a 73-54 victory Friday at Schaumburg (2-5) in both teams Mid-Suburban West opener.

McConnell’s three-pointer with 1:32 remaining in the first half was part of a 14-5 run that helped Fremd (6-0) extend an 18-14 lead.

“I think we’re taking good shots and the shots were open,” said McConnell, who fell one point shy of equalling her season high. “We’ve been practicing moving the ball and swinging the ball and taking good shots and not forcing the ball, which is what we did.”

Schaumburg closed to within 39-30 with 5:10 remaining in the third quarter, but Fremd answered with a 7-0 run behind a conventional three-point play by Gorecki and a 15-foot jumper inside the key by McConnell.

“I thought we shot the ball well,” Fremd coach Dave Yates said. “We’ve been shooting the ball. We’re also young. We only have two kids who played heavy minutes for us last year. We have some good young kids. We’re going to have hiccups, but we’ll get better at it.”

Fremd started a freshman, three juniors and a senior and brought a sophomore and three juniors off the bench.

“I’m trying to get the kids some experience and grow,” Yates said. “Our goal is to get better as the year goes on. Obviously, we have room for improvement, but we’re off to a good start. The nice part is we have a lot of different kids who can score.

“We have the ability to go on those runs,” he added. “We’ve been doing that all season long. That makes it fun as a coach to have kids who can do that.”

Alyssa Saklak, a 5-11 senior, led Schaumburg with 20 points and junior guard Amanda Kelly added 12.

“We tried to come out strong the first and second quarters and we did, but we kind of lost it the third and fourth quarters,” Saklak said. “They came out strong hitting every shot.

“There’s a lot of stuff we have to work on,” she added. “We have a lot of young girls and we’re trying to get them up to our level. We have a deep bench, we’re just trying to work with them to get everyone to flow together. It’s difficult right now, but we’re getting there.”

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