Barrie opened the 2001-02 season with perhaps its most ambitious non-conference schedule ever, playing in the Potomac School Invitational, the Cougar Holiday Classic (at Quince Orchard High) and the Bullis Holiday Classic. Barrie also played against county powerhouse Montrose Christian in a regular-season game earlier this month.

While the wins were scarce, the experience and the confidence the Mustangs (16-6) gained was immeasurable, and it has played a large part in the team's 9-0 start in the Potomac Valley Athletic Conference, which includes Sunday's 56-37 victory over visiting Hebrew Academy (10-6, 5-4 in the PVAC).

"The tournaments like the Quince Orchard tournament, the Bullis tournament, we played against pretty good teams," said Barrie forward Josh Colwell, a Newport School transfer, who torched the Lions for 29 points and 17 rebounds. "That helped us out a lot as a team, [to] work as a team. I'm not surprised in this league [that] we're 9-0, but playing against other competition, like hard teams, that shows how good we are."

Barrie challenged Bullis, Montrose and Quince Orchard before falling down the stretch, and it garnered a split with a tough St. John's/Prospect Hall team during separate tournament meetings. So far in league play, however, the Mustangs have pretty much had their way en route to first place in the North Division and an early lead in the race for the top seed in the league's season-ending tournament.

"We expected to do this," said Barrie senior guard Frank Mason, who had 7 points and 10 rebounds in the Hebrew victory. "We trained real hard in the offseason. We train hard and practice every day. We're going too hard not to [go undefeated in the league]. Playing against the high competition, we saw we could play with everybody in the whole county."

Barrie also possesses the PVAC's most athletic team with players such as Colwell, Mason and senior shooting guard Bobby Sharafeddian (12 points). The trio combined for 48 points and 31 rebounds against Hebrew Academy.

"Out of them three guys, each night one of them steps up and plays well," Barrie coach Darnell Myers said. "Tonight, Josh played well and Frank did some good things. Josh stepped up and played really well. He got some good rebounds and did some scoring for us. That's what has to happen if you want to keep winning."

Having already played and lost to Barrie this season, Hebrew Academy coach Steve Achhammer employed a triangle-and-two defense against Mason and Sharafeddian. While it slowed those two players, the defense opened things up for Colwell, who took over the game.

"Our coach told us what to do," Colwell said. "Seeing a triangle-and-two, seeing that they were covering Bobby and Frank, he told me to come up at the high post seeing that [Hebrew center Noam] Fishman wasn't covering anybody, and we just broke it down as a team."

He poured in 18 of his team's 28 first-half points to give Barrie a 28-25 lead and had six more in the fourth quarter to help the Mustangs extend a seven-point third quarter lead into a 16-point margin with an early 9-0 fourth-quarter run.