Boys basketball: LeBlanc comes up big on both ends in Barrington’s narrow win over Schaumburg
Bruce LeBlanc and Barrington made an impressive closing statement in their Mid-Suburban West boys basketball finale Thursday night at Schaumburg.
LeBlanc scored the Broncos last 11 points in the final 4:31 to finish with a team-high 23 points. And the 6-foot-1 senior prevented Schaumburg senior guard Jordan Tunis from adding to his game-high 25 by blocking his potential game-tying layup with seven seconds left in the Broncos’ 54-50 comeback victory.
Barrington (17-7, 7-3), which finished second in the West and won for the eighth time in nine games, trailed 48-43 after a drive by Schaumburg (20-10, 4-6) senior Tony Horton and called timeout with 4:57 to play.
“We just had to refocus,” LeBlanc said. “We had to lock in, win this game and get stops on defense.”
LeBlanc stepped up with Schaumburg’s Javonte McCoy and Ray Black stifling Barrington junior scoring leader Oliver Gray to 9 points on 3-for-10 shooting. LeBlanc started a personal 9-0 run by twice hitting a pair of free throws and then putting the Broncos ahead for good at 49-48 with 2:44 left with his aggressive drive over 6-8 Zion Young.
“I felt like I had a good matchup on Zion,” LeBlanc said. “I had open shots and my teammates were setting me up.”
That included Adam Baird, who limited to Tunis to 5 second-half points, finding LeBlanc with his fifth assist for a 3-pointer and 52-48 lead at 1:20.
“Jordan had an amazing first half and we did a heck of a job on Oliver Gray,” said Schaumburg coach Jason Tucker. “(LeBlanc) really stepped up. If you had said we’d held Gray to 9 and Jordan would go off for 20 in the first half I would have said it was an easy win.”
McCoy’s drive cut it to 52-50 with :53 left and after a turnover Schaumburg had an inbound under its basket with :14 left. Tunis, who was 5-for-8 on 3s in the first half and 6-for-10 overall, drove from the free throw line but LeBlanc got the block, rebound, 2 decisive free throws and a big celebration from his teammates after the final buzzer.
“I just reacted to what he did,” LeBlanc said of the block that set him up to finish 9-for-10 from the free-throw line for the game.
“He attacked the rim, he was getting rebounds and defending Young,” said Barrington coach Bryan Tucker. “He was just battling.”