Prospect holds off Barrington

The Barrington football team learned the hard way Thursday night that even a perfectly executed game plan does not necessitate a perfect outcome.

And against the Prospect Knights, that's not particularly surprising.

The Broncos (1-3) fell 39-37 at George Gattas Memorial Stadium in a Mid-Suburban crossover, despite totaling 100 more yards of total offense than the Knights (4-0).

Just as Conant had attempted to do against Prospect a week earlier, Barrington coach Joe Sanchez simply planned to pound the ball, eat up the clock and keep quarterback Miles Osei off the field.

It worked especially well in the first half, when the Broncos rushed the ball 40 straight times over their first four possessions, totaling 256 yards on the ground between running back Chase Murdock (282 yards) and quarterback Terrance Terry (198). Barrington led 17-12 at half with a possession time of 21:35.

"All our linemen did an awesome job just helping me grind, grind, grind," Murdock said.

Trailing by two on fourth down with less than two minutes to play in regulation, junior Ben LeCompte came on to try a 40-yard field goal that would have given Barrington the lead - and probably the win. LeComptes kick was short and Osei needed only kneel the Knights to victory.

"Wow. Two different teams, two different styles," Prospect coach Brent Pearlman said. "They came out and just ran it down our throat, and we threw the ball quite a bit tonight. Both teams competed well and got after it, we just fortunately had the ball a bit later than they did."

Sanchez knew his disappointed Broncos had little to be upset about.

"They fought all the way to the end," he said. "We had a chance to win on their home field. We were going against a team some call the best in 7A football, and we went toe-to-toe with them."

Osei was 10-for-19 passing and threw for 247 yards and 3 touchdowns.