Northwestern recruit Johnny O’Brien throws three TDs, keeps Fremd unbeaten with win at Deerfield

DEERFIELD – Mom knows best.

Mom also throws a tight spiral.

“She throws a nice, clean spiral,” Fremd junior quarterback Johnny O’Brien said of his mother/in-house signal caller, Colleen, who, when Johnny was 7, would toss the pigskin with him in their front yard. “She taught me some things.

“But her main sport was basketball,” he added.

Mom is a lefty.

So is her Northwestern-bound son, who threw elegant, accurate passes Friday night at Deerfield’s grid yard, also known as Adams Field, in the Vikings’ 28-20 victory that doubled as an escape for a squad that amassed a program-record 65 points in a triumph last weekend.

Fremd (4-0) led 28-0 after three quarters against Deerfield (2-2), with O’Brien (15-for-22, 226 yards, INT, three touchdowns) connecting for scores with wideout Marquan Brewster, tight end Davyn Kuhl and wideout Brennan Saxe that covered 22, 14 and 30 yards, respectively.

“Johnny O’Brien is a stud,” Fremd coach Lou Sponsel said. “The stuff he can do on a football field ... it’s special. He’s special.”

Elusive and creative, too.

In the last minute of the second quarter, the 6-foot-3, 189-pound O’Brien bobbled a snap from the shotgun, deftly evaded a pass rusher, then spun to buy some seconds before flicking a right-on toss to Kuhl in the middle of the end zone.

OB makes quarterbacking look A-B-C easy.

Saxe, also a defensive back, had a super night on both sides of the ball, coming down with 8 receptions for 129 yards and breaking up 3 passes from Warriors QB Mac Jones (24-42, 251 yards, 3 fourth-quarter TDs).

Deerfield struck for 20 unanswered points in a span of a little more than 4 minutes to make the visitors sweat a little more on a toasty night.

On the final play of the route-turned-thriller from Fremd’s 16-yard line, following Deerfield’s recovery of an on-side kick, Jones chucked a pass that Vikings senior linebacker Luke McIlhon broke up in the end zone.

Ballgame.

“Just threw my hands up there,” the 6-2, 212-pound McIlhon said. “Just trying to make a play, that’s all.”

Fremd sophomore running back Jayden Faulkner scored the Vikes’ other TD, rushing up the middle for 13 yards while breaking tackles to expand the lead to 20-0 ahead of classmate Shea Sloan’s extra point.

Deerfield senior tight end Jack Berger finished with 10 receptions for 132 yards, with many of them occuring during the Warriors’ furious rally.

“You have to close out games better than we did after getting a 28-0 lead,” Sponsel said. “We didn’t show up in the fourth quarter, made some mistakes upfront.

“It’s a win, yes,” he added. “We’ll take it.”

Fremd junior defensive lineman Anthony D’Ambrosio sacked Jones 10 yards via a diving stop 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage at the Fremd 37 in the third quarter.