It’s funny how things work out sometimes. On December 30, had you asked Babbi Barriero and Ashley Graham if they envisioned their respective girls basketball teams would be playing against each other for the Class 4A state championship less than three months later, they would have both said they sure hoped so.

Stevenson senior guard Simone Sawyer had a game to forget in Friday’s Class 4A state semifinal win over Benet. But Sawyer atoned for sluggish effort with a game to remember on Saturday. Sawyer made 11 of her 17 shots to score a game-high 26 points to lead Stevenson to a 55-43 win over Barrington in the Class 4A state championship game at Redbird Arena.

Barrington was able to hold off a late Bolingbrook comeback to win 64-55 in the Class 4A state girls basketball semifinals Friday at Redbird Arena in Normal. The Fillies will meet Stevenson for the state championship on Saturday.

It was a season for Sophie Swanson unlike any other player has had for Barrington’s girls basketball program, and one that has landed the junior the honor of being named he Daily Herald’s All-Area Captain for the Northwest suburbs.

For the first time in two years, the Illinois High School Association girls basketball Class 3A and 4A state tournaments are set to tipoff on Friday.

Barrington’s slice of the pie was bigger than South Elgin’s Thursday in the Class 4A girls basketball sectional final at DeKalb. South Elgin had a nice size piece in the first half. But it was Barrington that came away with all the cream as the Fillies survived with a 58-51 win.

Barrington defeated Huntley, 53-36, Tuesday in a Class 4A DeKalb girls basketball sectional semifinal.

Moments after the Barrington girls basketball team scored a 62-26 Class 4A regional title victory over McHenry, Fillies coach Babbi Barreiro was holding the championship plaque aloft for all to see.

With 31.5 seconds left in Monday’s opening round of the Class 4A Barrington regional, the game was stopped as Fillies girls basketball coach Babbi Barreiro led her players onto the court to honor the man coaching their opponent.A standing ovation followed for legend George Rosner, who was coaching his final game of a 41-year career as Streamwood’s girls basketball coach.

With a convincing 51-28 triumph over visiting Prospect on Wednesday night, the Mid-Suburban League girls basketball championship plaque is back at Barrington High School.

St. Viator senior Joy Bergstrom, a four-year starter, became the Lions’ all-time leading girls basketball scorer last week. With her 18 points in a 60-45 loss to Carmel, Bergstrom reached 1,696 for her four seasons, including her junior campaign which was cut in half due to COVID-19.

Barrington junior guard Sophie Swanson displayed a look of satisfaction after her 3-pointer swished through the nets midway through the fourth quarter on Saturday. Swanson scored 21 of her game-high 31 points to lead Barrington to a 61-45 win in the Midwest Hoops Spotlight Invitational at Trinity High School.

Current Barrington athletic director and former boys basketball coach Mike Obsuszt recently released a book chronicling the history of the Broncos’ hoops program. With that in mind, Barrington’s girls basketball squad made some history of its own in a dominant 58-19 win at Palatine Friday night.

On the same day she rewrote the Barrington girls record book, Sophie Swanson made a commitment to write her name on a National Letter of Intent when she becomes a senior. The 5-foot-11 junior, who broke her own single-game school record with 40 points in a 62-47 win over Fremd on Tuesday night, earlier in the day committed to Purdue rookie women’s basketball coach Katie Gearlds.

On Friday in Hoffman Estates, the Strauch vs. Strauch Mid-Suburban West girls basketball match takes place again, just one week after Conant coach Todd Strauch and his Cougars edged Schaumburg coach Jacqie Strauch’s Saxons, 42-38.

Sophie Swanson scored a career-high 40 points Tuesday night to lead Barrington to a 62-47 girls basketball win over Fremd.

Due to a broken nose she suffered at the Dundee-Crown tournament two weeks ago, Gwen Adler is double masked wearing a face guard and a COVID mask.On Thursday night, the Barrington sophomore put in a double-double performance for Barrington’s girls basketball team.

One of the Northwest suburbs’ girls basketball teams currently on the biggest roll is Maine South, which has won eight of its last nine games through Monday.

It was a great game for the Barrington girls basketball team, and a huge milestone for one player when the Fillies hosted Conant Tuesday night in the Mid-Suburban League. The Fillies’ Sophie Swanson scored 16 of her 18 points in the second half, including a driving basket with 5:18 to play that gave her 1,001 career points, setting off a wild Fillies celebration on the court.

When teams return to Mid-Suburban League girls basketball action on Friday night, Fremd and Prospect will each hold one-game leads in their respective West and East divisions. And the two teams will hardly be void of momentum. They are the only two from the conference who are coming off championship runs at holiday tournaments.

In one of the all-time great finishes of the 38-year-old Dundee-Crown Komaromy Classic, it was two of the youngest players on the floor who teamed up to bring Stevenson’s girls basketball team its first title in Carpentersville since the Patriots’ glory teams of the 1990s. With the clock winding down inside 10 seconds, sophomore guard Kendell Williams found freshman guard Nisha Musunuri in the corner. Musunuri dribbled quickly to the middle of the lane and tossed up a 5-footer with 4.9 seconds left which proved to be the winning basket in the Patriots’ thrilling 53-51 triumph over Barrington (12-5).

Barrington’s girls basketball team has been participating in the Dundee-Crown Komaromy Classic for the past 10 years under hall of fame coach Babbi Barreiro. For the first time, Barreiro will bring the Fillies to Carpentersville for a championship game of the 38th annual tradition-rich tourney named for D-C’s longtime hall of fame girls basketball coach Joe Komaromy . Led on offense by junior Sophie Swanson (19 points) and sophomore Molly O’Riordan (16 points), the Fillies blitzed South Elgin 62-44 in Wednesday’s semifinal.

Sophie Swanson was feeling it early. Her Barrington teammates were as well. The Fillies nailed 6 3-pointers in their first 8 possessions while overwhelming Fenwick, 75-39, in the quarterfinals of the Komaromy Classic at Dundee-Crown. Swanson finished wiht a school-record 37 points.

Girls basketball teams from the Northwest suburbs will be looking for championships at three holiday tournaments that begin on Monday of next week.

Unlike 12 months ago, the vans carrying girls basketball teams will be back on the roads again this winter. Area teams are back in action for holiday tournaments after missing out last December due to COVID-19.

Stevenson senior guard Ava Bardic, just one game removed from setting the program’s career record for 3-pointers (161), added five more in a 52-41 nonconference triumph over Barrington.

It’ll be quite a climate change for Barrington guard Allison Funk come next fall. She plans to escape the type of cold, inclement weather we all experienced Friday night and enroll at the University of Arizona, where she’ll major in elementary education with a focus on bilingual. For now, though, the senior is heating things up on the basketball court.

Molly O’Riordan showed her evolving game against Carmel, canning 5 3-pointers to finish with 21 points and lead Barrington’s girls basketball team to a 73-56 win in the final game at the Exam Jamm at Lake Zurich.

Nikki Gonnella handled the rowdy atmosphere like it was common place, sinking 3 free throws in the final 21 seconds that proved to be the difference in Fremd’s 40-39 Mid-Suburban West opening win between two girls basketball teams expected to battle for the league title.

When Glenbrook North won the Maine East Thanksgiving tourney last week, among the smiling faces for the Spartans was assistant coach Steve Weissenstein. Yes, Weissenstein the former hall of fame Glenbrook South girls basketball coach.

The best part of Saturday’s exciting championship girls basketball game of the Bison Classic at Buffalo Grove High School is that fans get to see the same two teams (Hersey and Barrington) play each other again in just two days at Barrington High School in a Mid-Suburban League crossover. Round one went to the Huskies, who held off the Fillies 51-47 to extend their season-opening win streak to five games while Barrington lost for the first time in five tries.

Barrington’s Sophie Swanson came out on fire Saturday afternoon. The junior standout scored 36 points to tie the Fillies’ single-game record, now shared with Taylor Thompson, in a 66-31 win over Buffalo Grove.

Here’s a look at the girls basketball season in the Mid-Suburban West.