Grant overcomes foul-line woes at Barrington
Grant overcame poor free throw shooting down the stretch to edge host Barrington 75-68 in a nonconference boys basketball game Tuesday night.
The Bulldogs, now 10-6 and winners in six of their last eight games, hit on only 6 of 12 foul shots in the game's last 41 seconds to hold off the Broncos.
"Guess what we'll be working on in practice tomorrow?" said coach Wayne Bosworth of Grant's 18-of-32 free-throw shooting. "We normally shoot in the 70s (percent). In a way, it's a good thing. We didn't close out the game well, but we learned from it. As a team we got a little tentative when they made their run."
Grant led 63-50 with 5:33 left after a free throw by Sean Wells, who scored 29 points and pulled down 8 rebounds.
The Bulldogs led 65-54 with 3:22 left and the game looked well in hand following a basket from Jared Helmich (22 points, 11 rebounds).
Barrington's Ryan Carroll, who came off the bench to score 9 points, including 7 in the final quarter, hit 2 free throws to make the score 69-65 with 0:50 left.
Grant could connect on only 3 of 8 free throws over the next 28 seconds to lead 72-65.
Robby Vollman hit a 3-pointer for the Broncos (11-6) with 15 seconds left to narrow the gap to 72-68.
Ilya Kadushin (12 points, 6 rebounds) hit 1 of 2 free throws and Allen Lewis hit 2 more with 0.2 seconds remaining for Grant.
"We were down 41-29 at halftime," said Barrington coach Bryan Tucker. "The kids realized that we had to get after it a little better in the second half. When we began executing in the second half, we played better."
Brad Zaumseil scored 10 of his team-high 24 points in the third quarter to help Barrington start to rally.
Grant's strong rebounding, which ended up in a 37-25 advantage by game's end, helped the Bulldogs lead 22-13 after one quarter. They had trailed 9-6.
Helmich scored 16 of his points in the first half as Grant built upon its halftime lead.
"We have some strong rebounders and scorers inside and that's been our strength all season," said Bosworth. "It helped us get the lead because we didn't allow them second shots."