Jacobs eases past South Elgin
As the Jim Hinkle farewell tour rolls on, the classic one-liners just keep on coming.
And one line he’ll never relinquish is that a win is never ugly.
Hinkle used the quote 2 years ago after a win similar to Tuesday night’s 38-26 nonconference victory over the Storm in South Elgin, where the Golden Eagles shot a dismal 13 for 42 from the field and 2 of 12 from the 3-point line, compared to the Storm’s 0 of 14 shooting from the outside and 10 of 42 shooting overall on a night where South Elgin managed just 8 points in the first half.
But even if his squad suffered from the same basket-denying lid as the Storm did, Hinkle stood pat and never admitted his first ugly win.
“Two things are never ugly; babies and wins,” said the 70-year-old Hinkle, who was forced to take his kids to Buffalo Wild Wings on Saturday after they put up 77 in a win against Barrington. “But holy smoke! 38 points and we smoked them. We did dominate the glass.”
Jacobs (3-5) won the battle on the glass 34-24 and its defense prevented the Storm (2-9) to score in double digits in any quarter. A 6-2-9-9 quarter scoring total coupled with a bad shooting night and 17 turnovers gave South Elgin much difficultly trying to chip away at the deficit.
“If there was another team in the state colder than us, it was them tonight,” Hinkle said. “I don’t think the lid came off the peach basket tonight, but that happens so you find a way to win when you’re not shooting well, and we did tonight, that was by our dominance on the boards.”
Jacobs also managed 9 offensive rebounds, 3 for second chance points, 1 from Nick Ledinsky, who led the Golden Eagles with 14 points, 9 rebounds and 2 steals. He was a significant force in the 12-1 run Jacobs raced out to in the early going, where he knocked down 3 jumpers, 1 a 3-pointer.
“It’s good to get a lead early,” Ledinsky said. “It just gives you some confidence and then after that our defense just took over. We went on a cold streak for the latter half of the first (half) and the beginning of the second (half).”
Lake Ojo managed 7 points and 8 rebounds while Will Schwerdtmann also chipped in 7 points for the Golden Eagles, who have won 2 straight.
South Elgin, which never led, lost its eighth straight after trailing 23-8 at the half, Jacobs’ largest lead. A reinvigorated Storm came out in the third and got as close as 12 with 6:35 left, when they finally got past single digits. Ledinsky was still outscoring South Elgin at that point and although the Storm shot much better (4 of 9), it still wasn’t enough. The Storm’s starting five combined for 7 points as senior Ryne Lundy came off the bench for a game-high 17 points and 9 rebounds.
“I thought the zone kind of slowed them down,” Storm coach Chaz Taft said. “But we weren’t scoring on the other end. We were forcing them into some tough shots with the zone and our shots weren’t falling. We were getting wide open shots and guys weren’t shooting.”
Taft wants other player to step up after admitting he’ll be without freshman Matt Smith for a month after suffering his second concussion in 5 months in the Lake Park game on December 13 and Darius Wells, a junior who is still rehabbing an injury.
“We’ve got guys that are playing that are starting right now that have been waiting their whole life to get on the floor, being the second group of last year’s juniors and now stepping in and we’ve got two guys down so they got to take advantage of that,” Taft said. “Those guys aren’t taking advantage of that major playing time.”