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Barrington passes Schaumburg's test

Fittingly, on a week like this, this one wasn't over until it was over.

Barrington held on against host Schaumburg 35-28 at Gary Scholz Stadium on Friday night in the opening round of Mid-Suburban West play.

It was a contest that saw twists and turns from the opening kickoff, as the host Saxons (3-2, 0-1) got out to a 14-0 lead late in the first half on the strength of touchdown runs of 2 and 3 yards by junior Manny Little, the second of which came with 4:36 left in the second quarter.

Then the Broncos (5-0, 1-0) cut the lead in half on Nate King's 66-yard dash on Barrington's next offensive play from scrimmage, just 19 ticks later, making it 14-7 at halftime.

On Schaumburg's opening drive of the second half, things turned in the Broncos' favor when Little (27 carries, 112 yards) couldn't get through the Barrington defensive line on a fourth-and-goal from the Barrington 1 with 6:05 left in the third. That meant a 13-play Saxons drive went for naught.

"That stop by our defense was significant, no doubt," Barrington coach Joe Sanchez said.

And the Broncos took the momentum over the next 18 minutes of play, scoring touchdowns on 4 of their next 5 possessions, starting with a 15-yard run by King that capped a 7-play, 98-yard drive to knot things up at 14 with 4:25 in the period. That was followed by a 96-yard run from QB Johnny Davidson (11 rushes, 93 yards) to give the Broncos the lead for good at 21-14.

After Barrington's next drive stalled, Davidson (10-for-15 passing, 136 yards) steered Barrington on another set of back-to-back TD drives via the air in the final quarter. He tossed scoring passes of 9 yards to Josh Babicz with 9:27 to play making it 28-14, and to Jake Zyzda from 11 yards out to make it 35-14 with 6:29 to go before the game's final twist from the home team.

Behind the arm of junior quarterback Justin Perez (11-18, 195 yards), the Saxons rallied within 7 on a pair of TD strikes in the final five minutes. The first one went to Olijah Sally from 30 yards at the 4:47 mark followed by a 78-yard strike to Terry Gray that made it 35-28 with 3:22 left.

It took Mason Laramie's subsequent onside kick that only went 9 instead of the required 10 yards, and a 20-yard game clinching run by King (17 rushes, 178 yards) on a third-and-7 with just under 1:30 left, to finally seal the deal in favor of Barrington.

"I was really proud of our team and how resilient they were," Sanchez said. "They could've been down 21-7. For the offense to come back with those two big drives to give us the lead really showed how strong our senior leadership is. The MSL West is a gauntlet that gives you a challenge every week. In terms of the game, it was a really good football in a playoff atmosphere."

For Schaumburg coach Mark Stilling it was a measurement of how far his team has come since last season's 56-6 loss at Barrington's homecoming. But it also was a bit of a mystery for the Saxons.

"I don't fault our effort against one heck of a football team that Joe has," Stilling said. "I just fault our performance in those 18 minutes when we were outscored 28-0."

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