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Barrie, Barrie good

Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2006

Disturbed by his team’s lack of effort during the Bishop Ireton Tip-Off Tournament in early December, Barrie boys basketball coach Jack Mitchell decided to challenge his players by pulling out of last month’s Bullis Holiday Classic.

At the time, Mitchell said, ‘‘I’m interested to watch them respond. If they step up to it or not compete.” With six wins in the team’s last seven games (through Monday), the third-year coach has gotten the answer he was hoping for.

‘‘I think a message got through that we’re trying to teach them that regardless of what’s going on you have to give 100 percent,” he said. ‘‘The guys are trying to prove something to themselves. It’s just a different attitude that we’re starting to see. I think that was a pivotal turning point.”

That new resolve was never more apparent than during Friday’s 52-51 victory over Washington International, a Potomac Valley Athletic Conference tournament finalist a year ago. After letting a 26-19 halftime lead melt into an eight-point deficit in the third quarter, the Mustangs rallied for the road victory behind the play of sophomore guard Justin Graves (19 points) and junior point guard Eric White (11 points).

‘‘I’ve never been prouder of my team,” Mitchell said. ‘‘They just refused to lose. Our kids did not give up. They just hung in there and pulled it out at the end.

‘‘We just started to expand our pressure, going full court and generating turnovers. We continued to run our offense and Justin Graves and Eric White hit a couple of threes [late in the game] and we made some critical free throws at the end.”

That victory, plus a 50-36 win against the Field School last Wednesday, pushed Barrie’s record to 11-4 overall — it won nine games last year — and a perfect 8-0 in the PVAC, matching last year’s league win total with 10 more PVAC games to play (through Monday).

‘‘We’d rather be in this position than any place else but we try to tell our kids that we can’t be content, satisfied or complacent,” Mitchell said. ‘‘I think the lessons are being learned. We responded over at WIS and played within ourselves. We executed our fullcourt press and halfcourt traps and played as a team. We’ll continue to work hard and take it one game at a time.”

Graves paced the Mustangs offensively against Field with 15 points, followed by 11 points from senior Ian Masone and 10 from White. Barrie outscored Field, 32-19, in the second half.