Jacobs shuts down CL Central in 61-40 win

The Jacobs boys basketball players made a statement without opening their mouths on Wednesday night.

Coming off a triple-overtime loss to Grayslake Central on Friday - the Golden Eagles' first regular-season loss to a Fox Valley Conference opponent in 34 games - Jacobs held host Crystal Lake Central to 12 first-half points and ballooned its lead to as much as 34 in the fourth quarter of an eventual 61-40 victory in a league crossover.

"This isn't a down year for us at all," senior forward Tim Moran said. "We obviously lost a couple of important players from last year, but it's still not a down year. We want to show the rest of the conference and the area that by the end of the year we're going to be just as good as we've been the last couple of years."

Jacobs (3-2) dominated CL Central (1-4) in the paint with the combination of seniors Conrad Krutwig (19 points, 9 rebounds) and Moran (11 points, 9 rebounds). The duo outscored the Tigers' starting frontcourt 30-4, a task made easier when CL Central forward Mike Fior left the game in the second quarter with a wrist injury and did not return.

"Our inside men are pretty darn good," Jacobs coach Jim Hinkle said. "And they should be; They've been playing for four years."

"We knew we could go inside because that's a strength," Krutwig said. "We just wanted to shake the loss off, come out strong and just play our game."

Jacobs played good defense throughout. Using mainly a 2-3 matchup zone, the Golden Eagles held the Tigers to 4-of-23 shooting in the first half to take leads of 12-6 after a quarter and 28-12 at halftime.

Jacobs' offense blended more seamlessly with its defense in a lopsided third quarter. Leading 30-16, Krutwig book ended a 15-2 run with a pair of offensive putbacks, sophomore guard Nick Hofman (9 points) contributed a 3-pointer and another long jumpshot and Moran scored 2 buckets and 2 free throws to put the Eagles on cruise control with a 45-18 lead with 2:20 left in the third quarter. They led 56-23 after 24 minutes and the reserves played out most of the final period.

"I thought the third quarter was outstanding," Jacobs coach Jim Hinkle said. "I wasn't that happy with the first half because I thought we had some real mental lapses, though we played hard the whole way and created things. But in the third quarter we really played well and that salted the game away for us."

The win was a confidence builder for Jacobs, which hosts Huntley (4-1) Friday and Fremd (0-5) Saturday afternoon. The Jacobs players didn't just want to win in preparation for those games, they wanted to win big.

"Amongst the players we talked beforehand about blowing a team out," Moran said. "Not to (disrespect) Central at all, but we felt we needed a game to get back on track with two tough games coming up this weekend. All the Fox teams are looking good this year, so we have some tough games coming up and we needed to get back on track."

Connor Buxton led the Tigers with 11 points, including a pair of 3-pointers. Avery Schafer scored 9 of his 11 points in the fourth quarter.