Baseball: Hulligan, Buffalo Grove bats rumble past Barrington

Mason Hulligan and Buffalo Grove tamed Barrington.

Again.

Hulligan, who beat the Broncos in his first career start a year ago, found ways to get make the pitches and plays when needed Friday. Meanwhile, the Buffalo Grove bats came alive as the Bison rumbled past Barrington 13-3 in five innings in Buffalo Grove.

It was Buffalo Grove's fourth consecutive win over Barrington in the past 2½ years. During that span, the Bison have beaten the Broncos twice during the regular season and twice in the Mid Suburban League championship game.

"We thought that Hulligan gave us the best chance to beat a real quality program," Buffalo Grove coach Bill Montemayor said. "They are a good team that we have a lot of battles with the last couple of years."

With the win, Buffalo Grove (13-9, 7-5) remained in contention the MSL East. The Broncos trail Hersey by a game in the East after Fremd beat Hersey 8-7.

Elk Grove, which beat Conant 5-1, is also a game back in the East. The teams have four conference games remaining, "We have been playing some pretty good baseball of late," Montemayor said. "We have a young group, but we are coming together at the right time. We are staying in contention, we may need to win out, but we will see what happens.

Hulligan, who leads the area with his 7-1 record, was pitching on a Friday for the first time this season. He has been the Monday starter for the Bison all season. "There have been lots of Tuesdays because of rain," Hulligan said.

Barrington (17-8-1, 10-2) got to Hulligan in the top of the Broncos plated 2 runs.

Brendan Beals, who led off with the first of his 2 doubles, would eventually score on the back end of a double steal. Kade Schneider then had an RBI single.

But Hulligan helped himself by picking a runner of a second and getting a pair of ground outs to end the threat.

Hulligan would later pick off another Barrington runner at second base to end another threat. He would later strike out a batter to end another inning with runners on first and second.

Barrington had built a 3-1 lead heading into the bottom of the fourth when Buffalo Grove exploded.

The Bison sent eight batters to the plate that inning and scored 4 runs. In their next time batting, Buffalo Grove put the game away by sending 14 batters to the plate and scoring 7 runs to end the game.

Michael Russo had a huge day for the Bison going 4-for-4 with 2 RBI.

"I have been trusting my training all season," Russo said. "This win was huge for us. It keeps us in contention in the conference."

Brady Mac also came up big, with 3 hits, including a double. He also drove in a pair of runs.

"They had the upper hand at first," Mac said. "But we started putting the bat in the ball. And when get into a rhythm, we are hard to stop."

Matt Maradkel had 3 hits batting in the number nine spot. He also drove in 3 runs. Ryan Stefani had 2 RBI for Buffalo Grove.

Despite the loss, Barrington remained two games ahead of Conant and Fremd in the West with four conference games to play. The Broncos have swept both teams and own the tiebreaker with each team.

"We just left too many guys on base and took too many strikes," Barrington coach Pat Wire said. "We also had guys picked off and that is the frustrating thing. I hope this is the wake-up call we need."