Boys basketball: Barrington celebrates Gray’s 1,000th point, and hard-fought win over Palatine

Everyone from Barrington got to enjoy some cake to celebrate junior Oliver Gray surpassing the 1,000-point mark for his varsity basketball career Friday night.

The 6-foot-6 Gray led the way with a game-high 22 points. He also had a lot of teammates help stuff the stat sheet in the Broncos’ 62-56 Mid-Suburban West victory over visiting Palatine.

“We never stop believing we can win as a team,” Gray said after he shot 6-for-14 from the field, 4-for-8 on 3-pointers and 6-for-8 on free throws. “We play hard and we play smart, too. We stepped up on defense in the second half and that was really our difference-maker.”

Versatile 6-1 senior Bruce LeBlanc (9 points, 7 rebounds) was instrumental inside and outside defensively as the Broncos (14-6, 6-2) won their fifth in a row and 10th in 13 tries. So were 6-5 Gus Edstrom (6 points, 6 rebounds) and 6-7 Daniel Shackleton (4 points) inside against Palatine 6-4 junior Tony Balanganayi (14 points, 12 rebounds), who was also hampered by foul trouble.

Chris Tacher (12 points, 5 rebounds), Jackson Roberts (7 points), Adam Baird and Connor Harris (3 assists) also made an impact with senior Ian Tepas playing limited minutes off an illness. That kept Barrington a game out of first going into next Friday’s West showdown at Fremd (21-2, 7-1).

“Everybody knows Oliver is our main man,” LeBlanc said. “The rest of us do what we can to take the pressure off him.”

Which they did as Gray hit 3 of his first 4 behind the arc in the first 5:27, missed his next 7 shots but then scored 13 in the final 6:23. LeBlanc’s reverse layup off Shackleton’s steal and Baird’s assist and consecutive rebounds and court-length drives by Gray made it 50-36 with 5:58 left. LeBlanc tipped an offensive rebound to Edstrom for a layup and found Gray for a 3 and 56-46 lead at 2:49.

“Everyone stepped up and contributed and did a nice job,” said Barrington coach Bryan Tucker.

It wasn’t a piece of cake as Palatine (13-12, 3-5) sliced the deficit to 6 points twice in the final 1:24 and 60-56 with 6.3 seconds left behind Balanganayi, Carter Monroe (17 points, three 3s) and Darrin Dick (14 points).

“We got back to feeling better about what we left on the floor,” said Palatine coach Eric Millstone, whose team shot just 36 percent from the field (18-for-50) and 7-for-27 on 3s. “I thought we got some really clean looks that didn’t go down.”

Fittingly, Gray’s 2 free throws were the icing for Barrington.

“It’s always been a dream since I was a kid,” Gray said of hitting 1,000 points.