Boys basketball: Hersey holds off Barrington to maintain MSL West lead
Logan Luxem made sure that Hersey would not get the “L.”
Luxem, who is a senior, scored all seven points during a late fourth quarter run to help push the Huskies past Barrington 58-51 Thursday in Barrington.
The win kept Hersey (14-1, 4-0) alone atop the revamped MSL West. The Huskies are a game ahead of Fremd and Palatine, which both posted conference wins Thursday.
Hersey coach Bob Widlowski, who had previously coached at Fremd, knew how difficult it would be for his Huskies to play at Barrington.
“It is definitely different now that the conference has switched,” Widlowski said. “This is always a difficult place to play and I told our guys that. They run their stuff real well and they are always in the right spots.”
Widlowski said he was proud of the way his team overcame the challenge.
“We battled hard,” Widlowski said. “They spent a lot of time keeping (Charlie) Pomis away from the ball. So I was proud of the way that (Logan) Luxem and (Jake) Nawrot came through for us.”
Luxem came up with a huge three-pointer, a basket and two free throws in the fourth quarter. He scored all seven points in little more that two minutes to trigger a 7-2 run that enabled the Huskies to pull away from a 49-46 lead with 3:41 to play to a 56-48 lead with 46 seconds left.
“Whatever the team needs is what I want to do,” said Luxem, who finished with a team-high 18 points.
“I hit a three-pointer in a play that was designed for Charlie. They closed down on him because he draws so much attention. So he kicked the ball to me and I hit the shot.”
Pomis, who still finished with 14 points, said he knew he would get lots of attention from Barrington.
“They were on me a lot, so I had to find other people to get the ball to,” Pomis said. “This was a good win for us in a tough place to play.”
Barrington (6-8, 0-4) came out fast and strong to start the game.
Led by Oliver Gray, who knocked down a pair of threes on his way to 10 first quarter points, the Broncos opened up an 11-7 lead.
Hersey battled back to grab a 12-11 lead. But a late charge by the Broncos would give them a 16-13 lead after one quarter.
Hersey, which has not been behind much this season, then began to assert itself. Powered by three-pointers by Pomis and Ethan Gries, the Huskies would score the next 8 points to surge ahead 21-16.
Barrington did cut the lead to 22-19 on a three-pointer by Evan Shechtman. Hersey then closed out the quarter with a 7-3 run to take a 29-22 halftime lead.
Each time Hersey would look to pull away in the second half, Barrington would find a way to keep the game close.
“What a talented team Hersey has,” Barrington coach Bryan Tucker said. “There was great fight in our kids. And I am really proud of them for doing that.”
Nawrot had 14 points and 7 rebounds for Hersey while Ethan Gries had 8 points.
Gray led Barrington with 25 points. Shechtman added 12 points while Roberts chipped in seven points.