Barrington sparkles against Palatine

Kudos to the Barrington sound system engineers for playing the Rose Royce 70’s disco classic “Car Wash” just prior to the start of Thursday’s boys volleyball match.

And big-time props to the Broncos for cleaning up on the court in a dominant victory over a very good Palatine team.

Six-foot-8 Barrington senior middle blocker Tommy Leonard led the way for the hard-hitting Broncos with 10 kills in a 25-14, 25-17 win over the Pirates in the Mid-Suburban West.

Consider the stats in the first game alone: The Broncos scored every which way with 9 kills, 3 block kills, 3 service aces, 2 tips and a perfectly placed dump kill from senior setter Taylor Ganzer.

Not to mention quite a few forced (and unforced) Palatine errors.

So the question is, could this be one of the better teams to wear the Barrington colors since coach Rob Ridenour took the helm?

“We’re getting there,” said Ridenour, who’s team improved to 8-3, 4-0 in the West. “We struggled a little bit in the first tournament of the year at Buffalo Grove, but at that point we weren’t approaching each match with an elite mentality.

“Lately, we’ve had that elite mentality.”

Senior Eric Gabbard led Palatine (5-5, 3-1) with 6 kills on 17-of-19 hitting but the Pirates, who at times showed flashes of brilliance, could never seem to get into a rhythm.

“I felt like we were out of system the whole night,” said Palatine coach Frank Stark. “You have to give a lot of credit for that to Barrington. Their service, obviously, was strong, and their serve receive — I think they got kills about 90 percent of the time that we were serving.

“They’ve just got a lot of weapons.”

Barrington senior Austin Czarnecki, one of a group of Broncos who have been playing together for awhile, was perfect on serve receive (16-for-16) and recorded 9 digs.

“We’ve been together for a few years now, and we’ve matured together,” said Czarnecki of a Barrington team that boasts nine seniors. “That familiarity breeds confidence, and the more confident we are, the better we play.”

“We had a really good team last season,” added Leonard, “and we’re really good this year, but it’s a different kind of good. We did lose some skilled seniors from last year’s team but we have a new maturity level and we’re moving forward together.”

Junior opposite Charlie Spry hit 9 kills for the winners while Ganzer added 18 assists.

“We weren’t happy about the way last season ended,” said Ganzer of the Broncos’ 2011 regional championship loss. “We’re using that as motivation to push forward. We want to improve on that finish.”

“There’s two things that I remind these guys every day — maybe a little too much,” added Ridenour. “One, that we lost in the Mid-Suburban League championship game, and two, that we lost the regional championship.

“When we think about those situations, it really gets us going.”