Lester impresses as Barrington tops Schaumburg

With a pair of Big Ten coaches in the stands to scout Barrington's Rapolas Ivanauskas, it was his teammate, Chris Lester, who stole the show.

With Illinois coach John Groce and two of his assistants in the stands along with Purdue coach Matt Painter and two of his assistants, Lester took center stage.

The 6-foot-6 senior was spectacular, especially in the first half Thursday night in his team's 55-44 victory in Mid-Suburban West play at Schaumburg. Lester finished with 20 points, 4 rebounds and 3 blocked shots.

"I felt that I was making shots in warm-ups," said Lester, who scored 16 points in the first half on 7-of-8 shooting including a pair of 3-pointers. "I felt that when I went out there, once I made one and then I made the second one, I just kept on shooting."

Ivanauskas, who is a 6-9 junior, has already secured 3 Division I offers, including Creighton, which offered last week. Creighton coach Greg McDermott was also on had to watch Ivanauskas, who scored 13 points with 9 rebounds and 4 assists.

"I want to do as best I can every game," Ivanauskas said. "Chris (Lester) had a great night. He was hot and I kept trying to feed him the ball."

Barrington (13-4, 4-0), which had not played in nine days because last Friday's game against Conant was cancelled due to weather issues, showed very little rust. The Broncos rolled out to a comfortable 29-7 lead at the half.

"We kind of felt like our kids were ready," Barrington coach Bryan Tucker said. "It has been a long time practicing against each other, and we were looking forward to a different opponent."

Schaumburg (7-10, 2-3), which hit on just 2 of 17 shots in the first half and turned the ball over 10 times, regrouped at the half.

"We had good shots in the first half, we just missed them," Schaumburg coach Marty Manning said. "We were a bit awestruck because of that. But our kids battled back."

The Saxons showed that life in the second half, matching their first-half scoring total in less than two minutes to start the second half to make it 29-14. Schaumburg had momentum when it closed to 33-20 with 3:27 left in the third quarter.

The Saxons then turned the ball over on their next 6 possessions. Barrington opened up a 42-26 advantage on a steal and a jam by Lester with 4:54 to play.

But Schaumburg refused to go away. Led by Marquis Woodard and the 3-point shooting of Jason Schoo, Schaumburg made things interesting. The Saxons were able to pull within 4 at 42-38 with 2:48 to play.

But then Ivanauskas showed why is one of the area's top recruits.

His turnaround jumper with 2:26 left made the score 44-38. Then after a Broncos miss, he went down to the floor to get a rebound and then quickly passed to a wide open Will Reinhard for an easy layup as he ignited Barrington to score 8 unanswered points to put the game away.

"They (Lester and Ivanauskas) played real well for us," Tucker said. "And I feel we have other kids as well. Any of our starters is capable of scoring double figures on any given night."

After Lester and Ivanauskas, the Broncos had nice balanced scoring. Matt McAndrew had 8 points while Reinhard had 7 points and Ben Weber chipped in 6 points.

Woodard led Schaumburg with 20 points, 15 of which came in the fourth quarter. Schoo had 14 points on 4 3-pointers.