OK, OB, do your thing.
Fremd junior quarterback Johnny O’Brien did just that on Friday night, passing for 4 touchdowns — 3 to junior wide receiver Marquan Brewster — in a 42-20 defeat of visiting Andrew in a Class 8A first-round playoff game in chilly Palatine.
“Right there, every time,” Brewster said of O’Brien’s strikes covering 32, 17 and 24 yards. “Johnny … Johnny O’Brien.
“That’s our quarterback.”
A Northwestern commit, O’Brien completed 17 of 21 passes (1 INT) for 320 yards in Fremd’s first football playoff game since 2019. His other TD toss, a 10-yarder, went to senior wideout Aiden Patel in the fourth quarter, stretching the Vikings’ lead to 34-14 ahead of sophomore Shea Sloan’s extra point.
If 3 TD receptions to Brewster sounds familiar, it should — he snared that many in the season opener vs. Lake Zurich.
Brewster finished with 7 catches for 137 yards. Vikings senior Brennan Saxe came down with 7 receptions for 116 yards, upping his career total in receptions to 237, which now ranks third all-time in IHSA history.
Fremd (9-1), seeded 10th and ranked sixth in the Daily Herald Top 20, will face seventh-seeded Naperville Central in the second round next weekend.
NC blanked visiting Schaumburg 48-0 Friday night.
Andrew (6-4) answered Fremd’s first TD — a 1-yard burst from Vikings sophomore running back Jayden Faulkner (15 rushes, 122 yards, 2 TDs) — with a TD and extra point at 3:21 of the first quarter and took a 14-7 lead midway through the second quarter.
The 23-seeded Thunderbolts wouldn’t score again until the final second of the game.
Lefty O’Brien rolled to his right and fired a 32-yard TD pass to Brewster at 4:23 of the second quarter before finding the same target some 4 minutes later, this time with Brewster executing some fancy footwork to stay in bounds in a corner of the end zone for a 17-yard connection.
“We all trust each other,” said O’Brien, who praised the Vikes’ scout team for preparing Fremd’s defense, which was led by junior defensive back Jason Hardy, who secured a turnover on downs by dropping a receiver near the line of scrimmage in the second half.
O’Brien fattened his TD-pass total to 35.
Andrew running back Brady Tanquilut rushed 21 times for 130 yards, and Thunderbolts QB Drew Silvia finished 9 of 16 passing for 182 yards.
“Teams want to keep our offense off the field,” Fremd coach Lou Sponsel said, alluding to Andrew’s non-hurry-up offense being a significant factor in Fremd’s modest 21-14 lead at the half.
Fremd, 3-6 last year like Andrew, entered the game having outscored its previous two opponents by a combined 100-12.