Thursday night’s matchup between rivals Barrington (9-9, 1-4) and Palatine (12-6, 3-2) was an action packed MSL West showdown that saw the Pirates prevail by a score of 58-55.

To no surprise, the Pirates found themselves the shorter of the two clubs, and needed to once again out hustle, and out man their opponents. That’s exactly what the hosts did to beat their conference rivals.

With 3:44 left in the final frame, junior Zach Oles made a three to give the Pirates a two possession lead. On the next defensive possession, Oles found himself on the ground after taking a key charge to swing the momentum even more in the hosts favor.

“I got caught holding him for a foul the play before. When I hit the 3-point basket, I knew we had to toughen up on defense on the next play. This was a nice win for our confidence after coming off two losses” Oles said on his contribution to the win.

However, the Broncos would not go quietly. Barrington used a 6-1 run to cut the lead to one with 16 ticks left on the clock. Senior Jovone Stricker was put at the line with 2.3 seconds left and hit both of them, giving Palatine the lead, 58-55. Barrington senior Ben Weber (20 points) had a chance to force overtime put his attempt hit the back of the rim.

Palatine only converted 3 of 7 free throws down the stretch with allowed the Broncos to stick around.

“We usually shoot free throws well,” Millstone said. “Tonight we hit a bump. We wanted to spread them out and try to get layups and shoot free throws.”

Senior captain Matt Ulrich (16 points) once again took the helm for the Pirates like he has in many other games this year. Seniors Matthew Mayer finished with 11 points and Charlie Van Dyke contributed with 8 points.

Senior Will Reinhard had 10 and sophomore Anthony Spann had 9 for the visitors.

The Pirates play four games over the long weekend for the Lake Zurich MLK Tournament.