Barrington blanks Buffalo Grove for program's 500th win

Barrington scored 42 points Friday night, put up 352 yards from scrimmage, and its run defense held visiting Buffalo Grove to negative yardage on the ground (minus 11) in the first half.

The most important number of the evening, however, was 500.

The 42-0 win by the Broncos in the Mid-Suburban League crossover earned Barrington its 500th football victory in program history.

"It's a great accomplishment for our high school and our program, " said Broncos coach Joey Sanchez. "We talked about it as a team this week and about all the great coaches and players who have been here. The boys were excited about that and they were excited for the home opener."

"We had a good feeling about this game," said Barrington defensive lineman Paul Kondraros. "We came in well prepared, we had watched a lot of film and expected to control the controllable."

BG coach Jeff Vlk said he took a lot of positives out of the effort of his team despite the outcome.

"I'm incredibly proud of our kids," said Vlk. "I told them that despite the final score I was really proud of their fight. We came out the first few drives, especially defensively, and did some great things."

Barrington tallied the first points of the game near the end of the first quarter as Quinn Ketel caught a 30-yard TD pass from quarterback Tommy Fitzpatrick.

Then 3 more touchdowns followed in the second quarter - a 3-yard run from Ketel, a 9-yard sweep to the end zone by Joey Gurskis, then a Fitzpatrick to Gurskis 2-yard scoring strike.

Meanwhile, the staunch Broncos' defense' didn't allow BG to gain a single yard on any of 10 rushing attempts in the first two quarters.

The first positive run from scrimmage by the Bison - a 7-yard gain from quarterback Mark Antonetti - came with 2:13 remaining in the third quarter.

BG did gain 134 yards through the air in the game.

"We expected the triple-option (from BG) on almost every play," said Kondraros, "but we also anticipated the pass on third-and-one or first-and-10, and we anticipated some trick plays also. We were ready for all that and that's why it was a shutout."

Leading 28-0 at halftime, Barrington struck for two more TDs in the second half.

First Fitzpatrick ran 30 yards for a score, then the senior QB put the icing on the cake with a 70-yard bomb to Eric Darlington Jr.

Fitzpatrick finished with 147 yards through the air in the contest.

"We talked about getting win number 500 as a program tonight," said senior Lukas Van Ness, "but we also kept our head on straight. We knew what we had to do and we didn't let it affect us, we just came in and did our job. I'm so proud of all the boys this week, they worked hard all week and got the job done."

"We had a tough loss last week against a very good Warren team," said Sanchez. "We did some good things in that game but we felt like we could have done better. To come out here tonight and respond the way that we did - I was really proud of our kids and proud of our coaches.

"Certainly to get win number 500 for our high school is special," added Sanchez, "and it's something that our boys will remember forever."