Schaumburg drops Barrington to stay tied for MSL West lead
Chris and Michael Hodges ride the bus together every day to Schaumburg. On Friday, the duo was able to send Barrington on a ride back home.
The Hodges brothers combined for 40 points as the Saxons held off Barrington 58-53 in Schaumburg. The win avenged an earlier 61-60 loss to Barrington and kept Schaumburg (17-5. 7-1) tied for first in the Mid-Suburban League West with Fremd.
"They are both offensively gifted," Schaumburg coach Wade Heisler said. "I thought Chris was a monster around the rim. Mike is really hard to guard off the bounce."
Chris Hodges, a 6-foot-8 sophomore, was difficult to guard for Barrington. He scored all 22 of his points in the first three quarters and kept the Broncos sagging on him throughout the game.
"I mentally prepared myself to play this game," said Chris Hodges, who also had 7 rebounds. "It was very physical last time we played. I knew I had to stay aggressive."
With Barrington (15-8, 3-5) focused on Chris Hodges, his brother Michael, a 6-foot-1 senior guard, was able to get to the basket as he scored 18 points, 8 of which came in the final quarter.
"It was just making adjustments during the game," said Chris Hodges, who had 3 assists, all to his brother Michael. The first half was a track meet with neither team allowing the other to pull away.
There were 8 ties in the first half as the teams battled to a 30-30 deadlock at the break.
Schaumburg broke ahead early in the second half but Barrington then rallied to forge ahead 19-14 on a 3-pointer by Braden Albertson. Schaumburg was then able to pull even on five different occasions to make the contest even at the half.
Trailing 35-34, Schaumburg went on an 8-0 run to pull ahead for good. Chris Hodges opened the run with his third 3-point play of the game and then ended the run with a short jumper as the Saxons led 42-35 with 12 seconds left in the third quarter.
Schaumburg led 52-43 with 2:58 to play when Barrington made a late run.
The Broncos put together a 10-4 run and closed to 56-53. Barrington had the ball with 12.6 seconds left, but the Broncos put up an errant 3-point shot and Jared Schoo canned a pair of free throws to put the game away.
"It was a real battle," said Heisler, whose team has won 8 in a row and 12 of the last 13.
"Our guys knew that was the team that beat us. I don't think we shot the ball extremely well. However we worked real hard to get it done and I couldn't be more proud of the guys."
Barrington got strong play from Mark Johnson, who scored 15 points, had 14 rebounds and 2 blocked shots. Will Raider had 13 points, Aaron Sarkar had 10 points and Jason Boock chipped in 7 points.
"I thought our kids played real hard and we just got done telling them that," Barrington coach Bryan Tucker said. "There we just a couple of things we wanted to execute. We just didn't do it all the time, we just did it most of the time. And against a team like Schaumburg, you can't do that."