Barrington starts fast, then holds off Hoffman Estates

A large early lead really comes in handy - especially when the other team makes a major second-half comeback.

On Friday night at Barrington, the Broncos were the ones with the early lead, and Hoffman Estates made the comeback.

Barrington held a 25-6 lead in the second quarter and was able to emerge with a 57-46 win in the Mid-Suburban League West boys basketball contest.

"It snowballed a little bit for us," said Broncos coach Bryan Tucker. "That was huge, having that cushion. Even though they came pretty much all the way back."

The Hawks chopped the Barrington lead down to 2 with 3:18 to play in the game.

"I think they expended a lot of energy trying to get back in it," Tucker said. "We got a couple of breakdowns at that point. We had a couple of easy shots, a couple of fouls and a couple of stops."

Broncos senior guard Bryan Wegner turned in a dynamite performance with 15 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists. Wegner scored just 2 points in the first half during Barrington's big run, but he dished out 6 of his assists in that span.

Wegner said he was just trying to get everybody involved.

"It felt really good for a change. We usually come out kind of slow," Wegner said. "We came out kind of looking to pounce on somebody. We had a lot of energy and everybody was contributing. We were playing as a team together, and it worked out real well."

The Broncos (11-11, 3-5) received strong efforts from all of their starters. In addition to Wegner, sophomore John Schneider and senior James Stack each had 10 points. Junior forward Owen Prunskis had 9, and senior forward Ben Bartz chipped in 7. Those five players accounted for 51 points for the Broncos.

"We were disappointed in the start tonight," said Hawks coach Bill Wandro. "When you get down like we did, that's a sign that you're really not prepared mentally to play. That's happened to us before, and we're trying to get rid of it. When they play focused they can do some good things, as you saw (with the comeback)."

Senior guard Kyo Azumaya (12 points) knocked down three 3-pointers in the third quarter to help the Hawks climb back. After Azumaya cooled off, senior Kevin Tiongson got hot, scoring all 8 of his points in the fourth quarter to continue the Hoffman (11-9, 2-6) rally.

"We just had to keep our cool," Wegner said. "We had to get back to what we were doing earlier in the game to get that lead. We called a timeout, settled everybody down, and got back on track to get the win."