Barrington emphatically ends title drought
Waiting another week was a miniscule amount of time compared to how long it had been since Barrington's boys basketball program had celebrated Mid-Suburban League success.
But after the Broncos missed a chance to clinch their first division title in 20 years last week, they made Friday's senior night and final regular-season home game one they will remember for a long time.
Barrington used its trademark balance to clinch a share of the MSL West title with a 61-27 win over Hoffman Estates.
"The time gap, it's hard to even comprehend it," said senior captain Owen Prunskis, who had 8 points and helped spark the Broncos' best defensive effort of the season.
"It feels good to do it here at home," Barrington senior Greg Gerrard said with a smile after he had 6 points and 5 rebounds. "We would rather have it by ourselves but we did the best we could."
The best thing for the Broncos (18-9, 7-3) is they'll play in the MSL title game for the first time since 1979 at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Prospect. They held all the tiebreakers over fellow West champs Fremd and Schaumburg.
"These kids, part of it is they care and they'll try to do anything they could to help the team be successful," said second-year Barrington coach Bryan Tucker. "It's pretty special to end a 20-year drought on senior night."
Junior Mark Bennett came off the bench to lead the Broncos with 11 points and started a 15-0 run that bridged halftime and put them up 31-12.
Sophomore point guard Brad Zaumseil had 9 points and 1 of his 4 assists was a perfect lob to a backcutting John Schneider (9 points) for a dunk. Tyler Weathered had 8 of Barrington's 37-22 rebound advantage and 3 assists, Lukas Osmundsen had 5 points and 6 rebounds and Mitch Smith scored 7 points.
"I'm pretty lucky that I have all these guys I can go to," Zaumseil said after Barrington hit 17-of-28 second-half shots to finish at 48 percent (26-for-54). "It helps that we have a lot of weapons."
Hoffman (5-19, 0-10) trailed just 16-12 on a drive by Austin Terry (11 points) but shot 23.8 percent (10-for-42) and had 16 turnovers.
"We know we had a bad night," said Hoffman coach Bill Wandro. "In the second quarter they got a little extension of the lead and the dam burst in the second half."
And the rest was history for Barrington.
"At halftime we got that speech by coach where he told us to play together," Prunskis said. "Nobody will remember how many points they scored on senior night but they'll remember we won the conference championship."