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Barrington thrives despite Davis' 35

The only answer Barrington had for Conant's Ryan Davis was the game's final score.

Davis poured in 35 points and had 14 rebounds, but it wasn't enough as Barrington's boys basketball team dug in for a 57-54 win Friday in Hoffman Estates.

"That stat disappoints us," Barrington coach Bryan Tucker said of the 35 points allowed to Davis. "Here is a stat that excites us: 57-54.

"That kid is so good. You try and do things. Their coach does a great job of moving him around and getting him the ball."

Barrington (18-4, 6-2), which remained alone atop the MSL West with the win, did a solid job of moving the ball as well.

Jack Reinhard roamed the baseline for the Broncos and was able to slide his way open against Conant's 3-2 zone to score 17 points.

"They were in their 3-2 and not paying attention to the baseline," Reinhard said. "So I would just float on the baseline and look for my teammates top-down. I also used an up-and-unders, too, to use the rim to protect myself from Davis."

Davis was unstoppable for Conant (16-7, 4-4), which with the loss is all but eliminated from MSL West title contention. Davis had 28 points and 10 rebounds through three quarters, and the Cougars led 39-34 with 1:12 left in the third quarter.

"The same thing happened when we were at Barrington," Conant coach Jim Malley said. "We were up 6. Right when it happened again, they called time out. I told our guys that we were exactly where we were. And they came back again."

True to form, Barrington ran of 8 unanswered points to take a 42-39 lead on a 3-pointer by Mark Johnson with 6:14 to play.

Conant closed to within 1 on four occasions from there. A 3-pointer by Davis from deep in the corner with Reinhard all over him with 40.6 seconds left to play made it 53-52.

Barrington's Anthony Spann, who didn't come off the bench until late in the second quarter, hit a pair of free throws to up the lead to 55-52 with 35.3 seconds to play. Davis cut the lead to 1 again with 16.7 seconds left on a pair of free throws to make it 55-54.

Spann nailed 2 more free throws just over a second later to get the lead back to 3 at 57-54.

Conant had the ball, but the Cougars failed to get off a shot, thanks to the solid defensive effort by Barrington, which was guarding the 3-point line. After a timeout with 4 seconds left, Conant turned the ball over with less than a second to play.

"Those free throws were huge, I practice them a lot," said Spann, who finished with 11 points, 9 of which came in the final quarter on 6-for-6 from the free throw line and a 3.

"This is a big win for us. Everyone has been doubting us, but we don't worry about that. We just worry about what we can control."

Jason Boock, who had 3 three-pointers for Barrington and finished with 12 points, said his outside shooting heated up thanks to some encouragement from his teammates.

"I started off a little slow," Boock said. "My teammates told me to keep shooting, so I just listened."

Barrington has the inside track on the MSL West title with 2 games to play. The Broncos have to play at Hoffman Estates next Friday before hosting Fremd, which Barrington lost to earlier this year, in the final game of the regular season in two weeks.

"We said that every game in the division was going to be a battle," Tucker said. "We know that is not changing."

Davis, who typically drew three Barrington defenders (and at times even four) still found ways to get to the basket and score. He blocked 4 shots to go with his impressive scoring line Friday, but said it was a tough loss for him and his teammates.

"It was disappointing, especially on our senior night," Davis said. "They were getting physical with me and I just tried to match that."

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