Jacobs finally breaks free of Grayslake C.

There was nothing graceful about Saturday night's Fox Valley Conference crossover boys basketball game between Grayslake Central and Jacobs.

In fact, at one point in the fourth quarter, there were bodies flailing all over the place, including that of a referee during Jacobs' 54-45 victory.

Jacobs guard John Moran had gotten tangled up with Grayslake Central forward Alex Anderson and both fell down near the 3-point arc.

Fearing there may be a fracas, one of the referees rushed to the scene but got tripped up on his way and landed directly on top of Moran.

The crowd went nuts and two Grayslake police officers and other school officials swarmed the court to maintain order.

Nope, it wasn't pretty -- and that certainly fit the theme of the night.

Both teams struggled to make shots, and were well below a 50 percent shooting clip for the game.

But Jacobs made up for it by not only getting to the line, but converting there, too.

The Golden Eagles hit 15-of-18 free throws in the fourth quarter alone to blow open a fairly close game and improve to 7-1. Grayslake Central drops to 6-3.

"They were missing a lot of their shots, and we were able to get the tempo going our way and it was pretty much free throws from there," said Jacobs center Conrad Krutwig, who came up clutch at the line. He went 7-for-8 there in the fourth quarter en route to a game-high 20 points.

The Golden Eagles got only 8 points from the Northern Iowa-bound Moran, who was still feeling the effects of a bad sinus infection. He missed school on Wednesday and Thursday.

"We knew we weren't going to get the John that everyone is used to seeing," Krutwig said. "We talked about it at halftime that we had to pick up the slack for him."

At halftime, Jacobs was clinging to an 18-15 lead. That was eventually stretched to 32-25, thanks to a 10-2 run to end the third quarter.

Tim Moran had a couple of big buckets for the Golden Eagles during that stretch.

From then on, it was free throw city. Of Jacobs' first 14 points of the fourth quarter, 12 came on free throws.

John Moran connected on 4-of-5 fourth-quarter free throws and Zack Peterson (10 points) hit 3-of-4.

"You've got to give them credit for being a great free-throw shooting team," said Grayslake Central guard Andrew Sipes, who poured in a team-high 18 points. The Rams also got 15 points from Anderson. "We just kept fouling them and it seemed like in a blink of an eye, we were down by 10 points. It happened fast."

Anderson hit back-to-back 3-pointers to pull Grayslake Central to within a bucket midway through the fourth quarter, but Jacobs' free-throw barrage just kept going.

"They played tough defense, they played a physical game," Jacobs coach Jim Hinkle said of Grayslake Central. "It was intense. They gave us a great game. We really had to bring it to compete with them."