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Dundee-Crown’s basketball team was lucky enough to breathe against Fremd on Saturday night.

The Vikings defense had an answer for every offensive set the Chargers threw at them. Fremd freshman forward Sean Benka — who scored eight points — helped his team set a give-nothing mentality early, as the Vikings crashed D-C’s home opener with a 49-31 nonconference victory.

Benka said Fremd wanted to eliminate the Chargers’ most potent offensive threats: Senior forward Dylan Kissack and senior guard Brandon Rodriguez.

“They’re fantastic players,” Benka said of Kissack and Rodriguez. “We just tried to pack in the lane and make them shoot, and we just didn’t want them getting to the lane.”

From the opening quarter, the Vikings (6-2) utilized their length and athleticism to seal and protect the inside away from D-C (5-1). Kissack went scoreless for the entire contest, while Rodriguez didn’t record his first bucket until the 2:20 mark in the second quarter — which was the Chargers’ first field goal in that respective quarter.

D-C was paced by JT Beasley’s 11 points.

“I think this win shows we’re improving,” said Fremd coach Bob Widlowski.

Early on, the Vikings kept feeding junior center Ben Carlson. The 6-foot-5 big man labored all around the court, helping with second-chance baskets and even drilling a three-pointer off glass.

“We made a concerted effort to get him the ball tonight, and I thought we did a good job of that, especially in the first quarter,” Widlowski said Carlson, who scored seven of his 11 points in the first quarter.

Fremd’s defense stifled the flow of D-C’s offense for almost the entire game. Turnovers and poor ball handling turned out to be too much for the Chargers to overcome. D-C committed seven and five turnovers in the second and third quarter, respectively.

“I didn’t think we played very well away from the ball tonight,” said Chargers coach Lance Huber. “That resulted in some turnovers.

“(Fremd) just manhandled us. Tonight it was men against boys, and the men won.”