Grayslake Central rallies past Barrington
Despite trailing 17-4 after one quarter, there was no panic in the Grayslake Central girls basketball team.
Instead there was a 3-pointer to start the second quarter from Kate Bullman that got the Rams off to the races.
They turned the tables on Barrington with a 17-2 run in the second quarter and never looked back in a 50-44 triumph in the third round of the Bison Classic held at Libertyville High School on Tuesday night.
"We just started playing our defense and offense instead of working at their pace," said Bullman, a 6-foot-2 senior Illinois State recruit. "We started to play our game."
A lot of the Rams' game was making more shots, taking advantage of some foul trouble and getting turnovers.
"I don't think we really played that poorly in the first quarter," said Rams coach Steve Ikenn, whose team improved to 3-1 and 2-1 in the tourney. "We just couldn't make our shots. We were working hard and getting looks we wanted. They just weren't falling."
Bullman ended up with 19 points followed by Amanda Kocialkowski (12), Madeline Mussay (10) and MK Drevline (8). Bullman and Mussay each pulled down 9 rebounds while Kocialkowski had 7.
"Kate (3 blocked shots, two 3-pointers) is a great all-around player and a great leader out there, too," Ikenn added. "She is like having anther coach on the floor. I thought Amanda did great with some of those steals we were getting and Bella (Vogeler) came off the bench in the first half and gave us a huge lift defensively, too.
"And Madeline (Mussay, who had 6 assists) is very underrated. That girl just flies under the radar and does so many things for us."
Barrington coach Babbi Barreiro liked a lot of things Michaela Goetze did.
"I thought Michaela's effort defensively was tough," she said. "I was happy with her overall performance."
Top performers on offense for Barrington (0-4, 0-3) were Taylor Thompson (17 points), freshman Sophie Swanson (14 points, two 3-pointers) and Laura Mahlum (10 points, 3-pointer).
Teammate Shanna Turczynski also had a 3-pointer for Barrington, which cut a Rams' 14-point lead to 39-34 in the fourth quarter.
Central led 47-36 with 1:13 left but back-to-back 3-pointers by Mahlum and Swanson made it 49-44 with 9.4 seconds left.
"We came out and played great in the first quarter," Barreiro added. "And I thought our team defense was strong. Then in the second quarter we got into foul trouble and that completely changes our confidence and our look on the floor. I thought we had too many unforced errors.
"We battled back nicely in the fourth quarter. We won the first and fourth quarters but the second and third hurt us."