Vikings' big man emerges

<p>Even while building a commendable 14-6 record through late January, the Montgomery boys’ basketball team was something of an inside joke. Meaning, the Vikings didn’t have much of a game inside the key. They lived and died on perimeter shooting — mostly lived, because they’re pretty good at it.</p><p>Still, there were nights when the shots didn’t fall, and those nights were usually tough on the Vikings.</p><p>As it turns out, the answer was there all along for Montgomery. It was center Ben Freeland, a 6-foot-9 junior who has been starting for coach Tom Fitchie since midway through his freshman year. Freeland had always been an important cog for the Vikings, but he has become much more than that over the past five weeks. He is now among the team’s first options on offense.</p><p>“You just think, ‘We’ve got a guy capable of playing pretty well in the post. There’s not a lot of kids in this area who have his size.’ So we started getting him the ball more. It was pretty smart on our part,” Montgomery assistant coach Brian Long said with a smile.</p><p>Just look at the numbers. In Montgomery’s first run through the North Bay League, Freeland averaged 8.8 points in six games (he missed the first Elsie Allen contest). Playing those same teams in the second half of the NBL season, he averaged 14.9 points.</p><p>In three postseason games — two in the NBL tournament plus last Friday’s 55-53 squeaker over San Lorenzo in the North Coast Section tournament — that figure has inched up to 15.7.</p><p>Freeland’s emergence hasn’t been limited to the offensive end. He’s also rebounding better and blocking more shots, and he has shifted the Vikings into a higher gear. Since a heartbreaking overtime loss to Ukiah on Jan. 27, they have reeled off nine consecutive wins, holding opponents to about 50 points per game during the run.</p><p>A year after finishing 12-14, Montgomery is 22-6 as it heads into tonight’s NCS Division II semifinal against Pinole Valley.</p><p>The funny this is, while just about everyone associated with the program agrees that Freeland has turned a corner this season, no one can say how or exactly when it happened. No one sat down and had a come-to-Jesus talk with Freeland. No one saw a light come on over the center’s head during a particular game.</p><p>Somewhere along the line, he just sort of got it.</p><p>“I wasn’t really playing at my top potential,” Freeland said. “I’m still not. But I was like, ‘All right, I’m not doing the best I can, not helping my team as much as I can. So let’s turn it around.’ I just had the mindset, ‘All right, I’m gonna get every rebound that comes my way. I’m gonna put every putback that comes my way. I’m gonna do whatever I can to help my team.’”</p><p>The metamorphosis surprised even Freeland.</p><p>“Very much so,” he said. “I was like, ‘Whoa, this is actually happening.’”</p><p>The result has been a more balanced offensive system for the Vikings, which is not to say they have abandoned the 3-point shot.</p><p>“We took 19 threes against San Lorenzo. That’s a lot,” Fitchie said. “It’s not like we’re cutting back. But I think Ben’s getting more chances.”</p><p>Pumping the ball in to Freeland has forced opponents to put more effort into guarding the post, which in turn has opened up things for shooters like guards Quentin Mendoza and Justin Connell.</p><p>“It makes it easier to get 3-point shots,” Mendoza said.</p><p>The Vikings have thrived this year on the strength of team chemistry — especially among a cohesive junior class that includes Freeland, Mendoza, swingman Alex Kobre and guard Zack “Woody” Templeton, among others. Most of them have played together, or against one another, for years.</p><p>Now comes another challenge in Pinole Valley, an athletic team of rugged full-court defenders that somehow held Hayward scoreless in the first quarter of last Friday’s 44-36 victory in an NCS quarterfinal. The Spartans have a strong inside presence in Kairon Moore, who is averaging 10.6 points and 10.1 rebounds. Moore is a leaper, but he’s five inches shorter than Freeland. Which means the Montgomery center could take on a featured role tonight — as he has for most of the past month.</p><p>Freeland’s ascendancy is a chicken-and-egg puzzle. Did he prosper individually because the Vikings made a conscious effort to get him the ball, or did they learn to rely on their big man after he proved he could score consistently? Fitchie’s got a tournament to win. He couldn’t care less about solving puzzles.</p><p>“We’re winning, and he’s scoring a little bit more, and so we should keep doing it,” the coach said.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at 521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com.</p>