Kirchoff helps Barrington close out Buffalo Grove

When the game was on the line, Angie Kirchoff was on her game.

The senior guard helped Barrington’s girls basketball team put away its third straight victory in the Bison Classic on Tuesday night at Maine South High School in Park Ridge.

Kirchoff made 2 free throws for a 48-47 lead with 1:24 left.

After the teams exchanged turnovers, she rebounded a teammate’s missed layup with her own layup for a 50-47 advantage.

With 7.5 seconds left, Kirchoff added 2 more free throws for a 5-point lead and the Fillies held on for a 52-49 victory in the third round of the six-team round-robin tourney.

Barrington (3-0) will play the only other 3-0 team in the tourney, Grayslake Central, at 2 p.m. on Friday at Buffalo Grove.

“I thought Angie really kind of put the team on her shoulders in that fourth quarter,” said Barrington coach Babbi Barreiro. “And Bailee McDonald (6-foot junior forward) had a nice quarter, too, making a basket and some big free throws.”

“We knew they were going to press us and that they were really quick,” said Kirchoff, who finished with 14 points and 5 assists. “We tried to prepare for that. Our 3’s weren’t falling, personally mine weren’t for sure.”

Two of them did fall for Kirchoff, and her second one gave the Fillies a 36-30 lead in the third quarter.

But the Bison, who led 16-15 after one quarter and trailed 26-25 at half, kept battling and closed to within 46-44 when sophomore guard Maddie Welter (8 points) hit a 3-pointer with 3:56 left in the game.

With 2:12 left, it was junior Maddie Callahan (9 points) who tossed home her third 3-pointer and the Bison had their first lead of the half at 47-46.

But the Fillies were able to pull it out down the stretch, getting the big play from Kirchoff and a big steal from sophomore Kelly Katis.

Barrington sophomore forward Megan Talbot came up with 14 rebounds with her 10 points while McDonald had 5 rebounds.

“Megan (Talbot) was huge underneath the boards,” Barreiro said. “And Kelly Katis showed some great presence of mind with that steal at the end (leading up to Kirchoff’s rebound layup).”

The Bison (1-2) had nine 3-pointers.

Sophomore Sammy Stejskal paced BG with 11 points while Courtney Meyer added 8 with 2 3-pointers. Senior guard Kim Herzog chipped in 7 points.

“We were close,” said BG coach Steve Kolodziej. “The most encouraging thing is that all our errors are correctable ones. The girls need to make the choice to correct them.”

BG gave up 15 offensive rebounds and committed 16 turnovers.

“And we talked about turnovers and rebounds before the game,” Kolodziej said.

Bison guard Julie Jambrone, a two-year starter, has yet to play due to a broken foot suffered in the preseason.

“Optimistically, she’ll be back in two weeks,” Kolodziej said. “But she is probably three weeks away. And Maddie (Welter) hurt her back in the second quarter so we didn’t play her a lot in the second half. Hopefully, she will be healthy for the rest for the week.”

Junior Brianna Kolbus also had a 3-pointer for the Bison, who swing back into action on Friday at 12:30 p.m. against Libertyville.

“We didn’t capitalize on their turnovers,” Kolodziej added. “We talked about how winning isn’t easy. And it’s the little things that you need to do. Barrington is a good team and against good team you must do the little things all the time.”

Barreiro would have liked some better defense from her team.

“We gave up some easy 3-pointers and let them penetrate to the basket too much,” she said.

“Our on-the-ball defense has to get better. Give Buffalo Grove a lot of credit. They kept going and going and played with a lot of heart, which they always do. There were times in the first half where I felt we lacked that.”