Barrington passes up Lakes at Jacobs

With the clock winding down in a tie game in the fourth quarter, nearly everyone in the gym thought Brad Zaumseil would take the final shot as the senior point guard single-handedly willed the Broncos back from a 9-point second half deficit.

Instead, Zaumseil entered the ball into the high-post to Zach Bart, who quickly found Scott Nelson cutting backdoor for a layup and a foul with five seconds left.

Nelson converted the ensuing free throw and a 3 attempt by Lakes’ Troy Swindle at the buzzer glanced off the rim, giving Barrington a 62-59 victory in the third-place game of the Jacobs Holiday Basketball Classic.

“We have to take what the defense gives us,” said Barrington coach Bryan Tucker. “A lot of times teams will take away Brad and we have some other kids who can score. It was fortunate that it worked out.”

“I knew it was going to be there,” Nelson said. “(My defender) was overplaying right away. I didn’t know how much help-side (defense) there was going to be, but I was going to take it anyway.”

Zaumseil was 10-of-19 from the field and scored 15 of his game-high 24 points in the second half.

After Lakes looked to be pulling away up 47-38 with 3:56 left, Zaumseil scored 6 points in an 11-2 run to tie the game.

And his most impressive play didn’t involve him making a shot. Trailing by 2 in the fourth quarter, Zaumseil pump-faked his defender in the air and passed up an open look to find Nelson (9 points) in the corner, who drained the 3-pointer for a 59-58 lead with 2:49 left.

“Our team has a bunch of good shooters and I have confidence in all of them making it,” Zaumseil said.

“It’s great to have a player like Brad on the team,” Nelson said. “He’s going to get his points anyway. He’s a guy that’s looking for the best shot out of anyone on the team.”

Lakes (12-5) led for most of the game as Direll Clark scored 12 of his team-high 18 points in the first half.

Jake Kohler had 7 of his 16 points during a 12-5 third quarter run to go up 9, but Lakes converted only 6 of 15 free throws in the second half.

“It’s something that we’ve been fighting all year,” said Lakes coach Chris Snyder of the second-half letdown. “It cost us today as we weren’t able to make up for it.”

“It’s tough right now, but when they look back on it, it’s a good end to the first half of our season.”

Austin Madrzyk had 9 points and 8 rebounds while Bart finished with 8 points and 5 rebounds for Barrington.