Willowbrook’s cold shooting start costly in loss to Fremd.

BENSENVILLE – A late-game exchange between Ryan Brown and Tommy Moffett showed there isn’t much doubt about how Fremd expects to succeed this season.

A 70-52 victory for the Vikings in the head coaching debut of Mike Brown had basically been settled late in the first half of Tuesday’s final game against Willowbrook in Fenton’s 36th annual Chuck Mitchell Thanksgiving Tournament in Bensenville.

Ryan Brown found Moffett inside for what easily could have been a layup. Moffett instead dished it right back to a cutting Brown so he could get a layup with 2:11 to play.

“We’ve got a lot of potential and a lot of guys who can step up for us,” said Fremd 6-foot-6 junior Jordan Williams after scoring 12 of his 15 points in the second half to go with 13 rebounds and 3 assists.

“We always share the ball and we’re all good shooters,” said Fremd senior Samuel Hirsch after scoring 18 of his game-high 20 with three 3-pointers in the first 16 minutes. “Whoever’s got it going we’ll find them.”

As a result Fremd (1-0) nearly had its entire starting lineup hit double figures. Junior Rafael Pinto had 11 points and five rebounds and Moffett unselfishly gave up his chance at a double-double with nine points and 11 rebounds.

Brown had eight points, five rebounds and five assists and did the bulk of the work in making Willowbrook (0-1) junior O.J. Powell, who averaged 18 points last year, get his team-high 17 points on 7-for-16 shooting. Fremd also got solid minutes off the bench from Chase Nelson, Charlie Chlan and Ricardo Zambrano.

“We have some guys that could play,” Mike Brown said. “We have guys who are basketball kids and work pretty hard on their game. As long as we share the ball we’re OK.”

And in the first half against Willowbrook’s 1-2-2 three-quarter court pressure it wound up being Hirsch who took care of a 50 percent share of the scoring for a 36-16 lead. He scored 12 points in a 25-8 second quarter where Fremd had runs of 11 and 14 points.

“We got it to Sam and he let loose,” Williams said.

“Their zone was so high up, as soon as we got it to the middle I had wide-open shots,” Hirsch said. “You have to have confidence to knock them down and that’s what I did.”

That was an issue with early opportunities for Willowbrook as it was just 7 for 28 from the field and 1 for 10 on 3s in the first half. Jaylon Griffin added 11 points and Filip Palutkiewicz had nine for the Warriors.

“We had some good looks but I thought their size affected us on some layups,” said Willowbrook coach Chris Perkins. “We weren’t getting a lot of clean looks.”

Rolling Meadows improved to 2-0 with a 44-28 win over Montini as Marquette-bound Ian Militec had 16 points. Evanston beat Chicago Latin 97-15 in Tuesday’s other game.