Darrow, Barrington stop Grant

Barrington center Mack Darrow grabbed a career-best 18 rebounds Tuesday in a regional quarterfinal against Grant at Stevenson.

Still, coach Marty Dello couldn't resist tweaking his 6-foot-8 senior after the game.

"A lot of those rebounds were on his missed shots," Dello said with a smile.

The Broncos could afford to joke around after an impressive 49-33 victory. The No. 17 Broncos advance to play No. 1 Lake Forest at 6 p.m. today.

"It wasn't a great game in terms of layups," Darrow said.

Most players would like to 'miss shots' the way Darrow did. In addition to his 18 rebounds, he poured in a game-high 24 points and blocked 4 shots.

"He worked hard to establish position and the guys did a nice job of finding him," Dello said.

For No. 16 Grant (14-13), the game came down to its inability to put the ball in the basket.

"We didn't play well enough to win tonight," Grant coach Wayne Bosworth said. "We missed a lot of open shots."

After falling behind 6-0 at the 5:19 mark of the first quarter, Grant scored the next 14 points and held the Broncos (7-21) scoreless for more than six minutes.

At that point, Darrow started to dominate. He scored nine of Barrington's 16 points in the second quarter, and the Broncos came back to lead 22-20 at halftime.

Barrington opened up a 7-point lead late in the third quarter, but a basket by guard Shane Richardson closed the deficit to 34-31 with 4:53 left in the game.

The final 4:53 was all Barrington as the Broncos scored 13 consecutive points to put the game away.

"We talked a lot about moving without the ball and we were able to get some easy layups," Dello said.

During this stretch, senior forward Cam Good grabbed a defensive rebound, dribbled through traffic and eventually dished to junior guard Bryan Wegner for an open layup.

"He drove through four guys," Dello said. "We were calling him Kobe on that play."

Wegner came through with 10 points while senior guard Chris Howard scored 9 points.

"This time, instead of clinging to a lead, we finished," Darrow said.

For Grant, senior Gilbert Sheehan had a team-high 9 points.

After the game, Bosworth was proud of the way his team progressed throughout the year.

"This group worked their butts off," the first-year coach said. "I was fortunate to have a group like this."