Girls basketball: Barrington cruises past Palatine
Barrington's girls basketball team was without junior Gwen Adler, its leading rebounder, but the Fillies still managed to rebound from two losses (Maine South and Montini) in their last three games.
Wearing their pink jerseys, shirts and socks on "Stand up to Cancer" night, Barrington raised its record to 15-6 and 3-1 with a 56-33 triumph at Palatine in a Mid-Suburban West game on Thursday night.
Purdue-pledge Sophie Swanson fired home a game-high 23 points with five 3-pointers and 5 assists and junior Molly O'Riordan added 18 points.
"We missed our rebounder," Swanson said of Adler, a Seton Hall volleyball commit who was out of the game due to a volleyball practice commitment.
"But others stepped up and we got the job done. That's all that matters. It's definitely nice to just start on a winning streak here after our winter tournament just like last season."
Sarah Bauernfreund picked up a career-high 9 rebounds followed by Swanson (7), Maddie Ziebarth (6) O'Riordan (5).
"Without Gwen here, we were losing some rebounding," said Barrington coach Babbi Barreiro, who moved to within seven wins of 500 for her 30-year hall of fame career. "And I really thought Sarah Bauernfreund stepped up her game to help pick them up. Sophie and Molly did a nice job scoring. Lydia Shechtman (7 points) hit a couple of big 3s for us. And it was Maddie Ziebarth's first start and she did some really nice things defensively, especially in the press. So it was nice to get everyone involved."
O'Riordan really got involved early, scoring the game's first 7 points and 9 in the first quarter in which Barrington finished with a 12-8 lead.
Trailing 15-8, Palatine (9-9, 1-3) went on a 6-0 run, capped by a big baseline drive layup by Frankie Henderson to make it 15-14.
But the Fillies headed into the locker room with a 21-14 lead at intermission, thanks to an exciting highlight when Swanson grabbed a rebound and then raced coast-to-coast to finish with a beautiful reverse layup with 47 seconds left.
The Fillies came out on fire in the second half, scoring the first 18 points with a layup from Bauernfreund, 2 free throws by O'Riordan and back-to-back-back 3-pointers from Swanson for a 34-14 advantage.
"We hit shots there," Barrerio said. "I thought our defense was good, In the second half we really picked it up. Credit Palatine. They came out hard and (Frankie) Henderson knocked down some big buckets."
Henderson led the Pirates with 10 points while Halle Onyekonwu added 6 and Megan Van Brunt 4.
"We haven't come out and played with a sense of urgency in the third quarter." said Palatine coach Bill LePage. "We need to get better in the third. But Babbi (Barreiro) does a great job and they are a good team."