Stay Connected with YourSeason
Logue the difference for Barrington
Barrington needed a big play trailing 16-14 against Highland Park in the third game of the Lake County championship match Saturday at Vernon Hills, and Matt Logue delivered.
Logue delivered not once, not twice, but three times.
One of only two seniors who see the floor for the No. 10 Broncos, Logue rallied his team with a kill and back-to-back aces to lead Barrington to a 26-28, 25-20, 25-19 victory and the county tournament title.
Logue finished with 13 kills and a block for Barrington (14-2), which bounced back after watching a 19-16 lead slip away in Game 1.
"We didn't play well today," said Logue, a 6-foot-3 outside hitter. "We knew we'd have to grind it out and be mentally tough. I don't think we would have won today if not for our junior varsity team, which puts a lot of pressure on us in practice."
Logue also got a lot of help from fellow senior T.J. Shanahan (nine kills, four blocks), 6-7 junior middle Tommy Leonard (nine kills, block), 6-5 junior outside Jeff Hochstein (nine kills, block) and junior setter Taylor Ganzer (40 assists, three kills).
"Tommy and I were on fire," said Shanahan, a 6-5 middle. "It was like a set-the-middle drill. Being my senior year, I wanted to win this tournament badly. We started figuring out that we had to move our feet more and get to the ball on time."
After Highland Park (10-4) rallied from a 19-16 deficit to win Game 1 on a Michael Eldridge block, the Giants took an early 13-9 lead in Game 2. However, kills by Ryan Coombs and Logue fueled a 10-2 Barrington run to force a Highland Park timeout.
The Giants never got closer than 21-19 on a kill from Andrew Feiler.
In Game 3, a Feiler block gave Highland Park an 11-7 lead before Barrington steadily worked its way back into the match. Two kills by Shanahan got the Broncos within 14-13, and after Austin Natkin extended the Giants' lead to 16-14, Logue took over.
Barrington closed the final set on an 11-3 run, ending the match on a kill by Leonard.
"I think the last game-and-a-half our blocking turned around and our ball control turned around," Barrington coach Rob Ridenour said. "That allowed us to run our middles. But the big difference was our toughness.
"At times we played pretty good physically, and at times we struggled physically," the coach added. "But our mental toughness allowed us to push our way through the struggles. I was very happy with our toughness."
David Ofer led Highland Park with 13 kills, Natkin added seven kills and Adam Conen had 27 assists and four kills.
"I think we lost a little bit of momentum (after building leads in Games Two and Three)," Highland Park coach Earl Alexander said. "I think when we were ahead, we might have thought we had things wrapped up.
"You have to play a complete match," the coach added. "We started making a lot of unforced errors and things kind of snowballed on us. They (Barrington) are a real good team."
Top-seeded Vernon Hills (13-3) had a Saturday it would rather forget, dropping its semifinal match to Highland Park 28-26, 25-22, 22-25 and the third-place match to Stevenson (11-3), 13-25, 25-22, 26-24.
"We did it to ourselves," Vernon Hills coach Chris Curry said. "We were fairly efficient offensively, and we played pretty decent defense much of the time, but we did not serve well at all. I'm not sure why.
"We kept telling them they had to get their serves in," the coach added. "We missed six serves after point 20 today. You can't put together a run when you miss six, seven serves a set. We served ourselves off the court."
© 2012 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.
Cell Phone Alerts
Comments Click here to view or make a comment