Barrington plays its game, makes sectional final
Barrington senior Bryan Dolan said that as long as the Broncos could “play their game” at their sectional semifinal and not worry about their opponent, they’d be all right.
Script followed to perfection, and now Barrington is right where it wants to be — on the doorstep of heading to the state finals.
The Broncos, solid in almost every facet of the game Friday, overwhelmed Buffalo Grove 25-20, 25-21 to advance to Tuesday’s sectional final on their home court against Cinderella Zion-Benton, an upset winner over Stevenson.
“We’ve been on a roll lately,” said Broncos senior outside hitter Ryan Sarkar, “but to win tonight, we knew we had to come out, play hard, and play well.”
It was the second time in less than two weeks Barrington defeated BG — the first time in the Mid-Suburban League championship — but despite the loss, Bison coach Matt Aiello said he couldn’t be prouder of his team.
“We played Bison volleyball tonight,” said Aiello. “You always want to be playing your best at the end of the season, and our guys gave it all they had.
“At the MSL title game a week and a half ago, we came out flat, and we had no intensity. Tonight, our guys played their butts off. Of course we would have preferred a different outcome, but I’m not a bit disappointed in their effort.”
Bison (25-13) junior Michael Maley was on top of his game with 17 digs and Barrington senior outside hitter Jeff Hochstein (match-high 12 kills) said the Broncos game-planned around the standout libero.
“We were mixing up our service, trying to keep it away from Maley, and get them out of their system,” said Hochstein.
“We knew they’d had a few lineup changes recently and put a couple of freshmen on the court, so we had to game plan a little differently than we did at the (MSL) championship game.”
The teams traded sideouts through most of Game 1 but a late run led by two Sarkar kills led the Broncos to a 1-set lead.
It was the same story in set two until senior middle Tommy Leonard got hot, slamming 2 straight kills from the middle to give Barrington a 7-point advantage.
There was still some fight left in the Bison however. BG was able to close the gap to 4 after a kill by senior Matt Bloom — but Barrington (31-6) quickly recovered and Hochstein put the final ball down for the match-winner.
“I’d have to say from a gut standpoint, our team was tremendous tonight,” said Broncos coach Rob Ridenour. “They gutted out some points by keeping balls alive with some incredible digs — they did a great job on defense.”
Bloom finished with 6 kills for the Bison while another senior, Sam Wacker added 5.
Austin Czarnecki led the way on defense for the host Broncos with 14 digs, while setter Taylor Ganzer had 28 assists.
“We were very happy to get this win,” said Dolan, “but we’ve got bigger goals in mind.”
The last time Barrington went to state was a second-place finish in 2005.
“We’re confident,” said Ganzer, “but we’re not going to get ahead of ourselves. We’re going to take it play by play and game by game.”