Barrington stands tall against Wheeling on Senior Night

It was a big night for Barrington's bigs.

The Barrington boys basketball team used its sizable size advantage on Saturday night to tower over visiting Wheeling and get a 55-36 Mid-Suburban League crossover win.

The Broncos, celebrating Senior Night, boast four players who are 6-foot-5 or taller, the tallest of whom is Nate Boldt at 6-foot-8, and 12 players who are at least 6-feet.

Points in the paint and putbacks are Barrington's bread and butter.

"It's great that we have all that size," said Barrington junior forward Will Grudzinski, who is 6-foot-6. "There are always mismatches. We attack the boards and have a lot of second possessions."

"It's hard for teams to match up with us with all that size," said Barrington senior forward Damian Zivak, who is 6-foot-5. "When one of us gets going, the other team has to switch and then one of us is opened up, and we just kind of bounce off each other like that."

Zivak topped Barrington, which moves to 8-1, with 21 points against Wheeling while Grudzinski had 19 points.

"Usually, other teams have one or maybe two players who are as tall as us," Grudzinski said. "It's a tough matchup."

Zivak and Grudzinski were dominant in the second quarter when Barrington extended an 11-5 first-quarter lead to double-digits (29-18) by halftime. The two combined for 15 of Barrington's 18 second-quarter points.

Grudzinski also had a big third quarter (7 points) as Barrington went up by 19 points by the end of the period.

"We try (to take advantage of our size)," Barrington coach Bryan Tucker said. "But it's nice because our kids with size also have versatility. It's not just back-to-the-basket play and guys who aren't mobile. It's a luxury to have that size and versatility to create those matchup problems."

Wheeling has some nice size in senior guard Jaden Terrell. He is 6-foot-7.

Terrell finished with a team-high 10 points.

"They are bigger than us but I thought it was more about effort with us," Terrell said. "We needed to get to the rim more and get to the free-throw line."

Wheeling fell to 1-7 on the season under first-year coach Tom Antosz.

"They're a good team and they're big, 6-8, 6-6, 6-5, they're big and strong," Antosz said of Barrington. "They did a great job of scoring with mismatches and scoring in the post. We wanted to play physical with them and make sure they worked for positioning but credit to them, they made shots today."