Barrington reclaims MSL title
The boys in scarlet and white are back on top.
Barrington won its first Mid-Suburban League boys volleyball crown since 2005 with a convincing 25-18, 25-17 home court victory over Buffalo Grove on Wednesday.
The MSL West champions used a mixture of solid defense, spectacular hitting and overall consistent play to defeat the Bison, the East Division winners and defending conference champs.
“We were hoping this would happen,” said Broncos junior opposite Charlie Spry, one of the hitting heroes with 6 kills. “This is so amazing, I can’t even describe the feeling right now.
“We came out mentally prepared and ready to play. Buffalo Grove is better than they showed tonight, but overall I think we were the better team and we went out and proved it.”
Buffalo Grove coach Matt Aiello, whose team was led by 12 digs from junior libero Michael Maley, said the reason for the Bison loss was “simple. Our serve-receive broke down. They weren’t acing us, but they were taking us out of our system.
“But even if you take 100 percent of the serve-receive problem away, we still made 20 unforced errors. Barrington, to their credit, made exactly zero hitting errors — they played clean, and we didn’t.”
A final kill off a BG block by senior outside hitter Jeff Hochstein led a Barrington rally as the home team claimed set one. Then a trio of Broncos upperclassmen came up big in the deciding game.
Seniors Tommy Leonard (3 blocks), Austin Czarnecki (10 digs) and Taylor Ganzer (27 assists, impressive for a 2-game match) all gave clutch set two performances.
“This was a great accomplishment by our seniors, especially Tommy, Taylor and Austin,” said Barrington coach Rob Ridenour. “Those three have been together on varsity since their sophomore season.
“They’ve gone from a being a young team, to a team with high expectations, to an experienced team this season — and they’ve given us great senior leadership.”
Hochstein led the winners on attack with 9 kills, while junior teammate Kevin Eiring added 4.
“We’re a tightly knit group,” said Barrington senior John Bach, “and we all realize what our job is. If we come out and do those jobs to the best of our ability, we can play a fantastic match.”
“This (win) means a lot to us,” added outside hitter Charlie Kingwill, “especially coming against a great team like BG.”
The Bison (23-11) were led in hitting by junior Evan Bunnetto (8 kills). Aiello said his team is looking forward to the playoffs where they’ll play in the same sectional as the Broncos, who will host the tourney.
Barrington (27-6) is the top sectional seed while BG is seeded fourth.
“We’re excited,” said Aiello. “We know if we head back to practice and keep working hard, we could be right back here in a week and half facing them again.”