Ivanauskas powers Barrington past Zion-Benton in OT
Scott Bennett saw two options as he raced up the court to try and complete Barrington's uphill battle to get to overtime in Friday night's Hinkle Holiday Classic semifinal against defending champion Zion-Benton at Jacobs.
Bennett went to 6-foot-6 junior Will Reinhard for a layup that beat the buzzer and gave the Broncos an extra four minutes. They never trailed in the overtime and won 88-81 as 6-9 junior junior Rapolas Ivanauskas scored a career-high 37 points and had 10 rebounds.
Senior Chris Lester scored 7 of his 18 points in overtime and his third 3-pointer 14 seconds into the extra session put the Broncos (11-3) ahead to stay. Bennett scored all 12 of his points after halftime to help drive his team into today's 7:30 p.m. championship game against Larkin (11-4), which beat Jacobs 66-51 in the second semifinal.
"When we hit the layup to tie it, it really got our energy going as a team," Bennett said after Barrington rallied from a 42-28 first-half deficit. "We were fired up and we knew their best player (Admiral Schofield) was out. We thought we could capitalize on that."
The Tennessee-bound Schofield had 21 points on 9-for-18 shooting and 8 rebounds but he fouled out with 6:22 left in regulation. DeMarquis Henry had 26 points and was 5-for-8 on 3s and Kienan Baltimore had 16 points and 9 rebounds before fouling out with 4:37 left on a 3-point play by Ivanauskas, who was 14-for-24 from the field and hit three 3s.
Zion (8-3) also missed its first 7 free throws of the fourth quarter but still led 73-69 when Jeremy Schwab scored his only points on 2 free throws with 40.8 seconds to play in regulation.
"We never lost our heads and no matter how much we were down by, we played with confidence," Ivanauskas said. "We played with absolute confidence."
Bennett found Ivanauskas for a 3 with 16.5 seconds left in regulation to cut it to 73-72. When Barrington guard Jake Orr fouled out with 6.2 seconds left, coach Bryan Tucker used that time before Henry shot his free throws to talk about how to handle the various situations depending on the deficit.
"I didn't want them to get their defense set," Tucker said of not calling a timeout after Henry hit the second of 2 free throws. "Obviously I'm really happy with how it worked out."
Bennett also saw Lester open on his left in what turned out to be a 3-on-1 before he fed Reinhard (9 points, 12 rebounds).
"Basically what we were trying to do was run the same play we did earlier when Rap hit the 3," Bennett said. "They wanted me to attack and everything opened up. We try to work on last-second plays like that."
Everything opened up perfectly in overtime for the Broncos after Lester's 3 as Ivanauskas had a baseline drive, Lester found Bennett for a layup and Ben Weber hit Lester for a layup and an 83-77 lead with 1:53 to play. Zion could get no closer than 84-81 at 1:03 as it missed 7 of its 8 overtime shots.
"I thought we executed very well in the final stages of the game," Ivanausksas said after the Broncos advanced to the Jacobs title game for the first time since they won the tourney in 2009.