Too much Kirchoff as Barrington holds off Hoffman Estates

It seemed like the Hoffman Estates girls basketball team was losing a lot of things Friday night at Barrington.

Its shooting touch (16 of 37). Its footwork (committed 7 first-quarter fouls). And then, after surviving all that and rallying to briefly take the lead, the Hawks lost the most important thing of all: Barrington's Abby Kirchoff.

The junior guard, the focus of the Hawks' second-half defensive effort, worked her way free and nailed her fourth 3-pointer of the game - this one late in the fourth quarter.

That put the Fillies (16-10, 8-2) back on top 39-37 and steal back the momentum, riding it to a 45-40 win in the Mid-Suburban West Division finale for both teams that broke a tie for second place.

"When we play our game, we're tough to beat," said Kirchoff, who finished with 16 points on four 3-pointers and 4-for-4 from the free-throw line down the stretch.

Barrington's "game" means making the extra pass to find the open shooter, getting the higher-percentage look, and, most of all, playing defense.

"We've been working on our defense for games like this all season," Kirchoff said.

"We've been playing very good team defense," said Fillies coach Babbi Barreiro.

But it wasn't good enough to contain Hawks forward Jada Stotts. She rang up 21 points, including 5-of-6 shooting in the second half to rally the Hawks (19-7, 7-3) back from a disastrous first-half performance to finally surge ahead in the fourth quarter on buckets by Stotts and Megan Bernardoni. The ballhawking defense of guards Mary Pettit and Kelsey Lukowicz helped fuel the rally.

And then they lost Kirchoff.

"We kept (Kirchoff) out of the game," especially in the second half, said Hawks coach Mike Nocella. "When we needed to, we didn't do it."

The Fillies received a balanced effort from Shelby Whigham (13 points) and Emily Harris (7), who battled toe-to-toe with the Hawks' Destiny Young and Precious Ogunleye around the basket. And the Fillies' Brook Chandor came off the bench to score 5 key fourth-quarter points.