Elk Grove storms back to beat Jacobs
Jacobs’ boys basketball coach Jim Hinkle pointed out the obvious after Monday’s loss to Elk Grove.
“They outplayed us for a quarter,” he said, referring to the second period of the 62-50 loss during pool play of the Jacobs Holiday Classic. “And that’s the only quarter they really outplayed us.”
The problem for the Golden Eagles (1-6) was that Elk Grove (4-6) did so much damage by outscoring Jacobs 23-5 during the period that Jacobs was never able to recover. The Golden Eagles led 14-4 with 2:21 left in the first period. The Grenadiers battled back, finally taking a 19-18 lead off a layup by point guard Kishan Patel with 3 minutes, 25 seconds left in the first half.
Zachary Solorio stole the ball and ran the court to set up the easy bucket for Patel (13 points). Elk Grove forced 5 turnovers in the second quarter and scored 12 points. Patel scored 7 points in the quarter and Anthony Jimenez came off the bench and scored all 5 of his points. Elk Grove led 30-19 by halftime, shooting 7 of 12 in the period.
“After the first quarter, (assistant) coach (Luke) Miller told us to handle the pressure,” Patel said. “Sometimes we get shaky starts. (But) we always seem to recuperate and handle the adversity. They pounded us in the post in the beginning of the game. Then our big guys responded.”
Jacobs jumped out to a first-quarter lead by post scoring and second-chance looks. Alex Glover put up 8 points in the opening period shooting 4 of 5 from the floor. He also grabbed 9 rebounds, 5 offensive in the first half. Jacobs held a 12-4 rebounding advantage in the first quarter.
After the first quarter, however, he was limited to shooting just 3 of 8 from the floor. He did lead all players with 15 points and 13 rebounds. In the second half, Elk Grove had cut the rebounding margin to a 15-12 deficit.
“Coming out, we knew that Jacobs was going to be fired up,” Grenadiers’ coach Anthony Furman said, “It was good to see us get up and defend and not give up easy baskets.”
Jacobs’ forward Will Schwerdtmann caught fire in the third quarter scoring 7 points, but Elk Grove responded with a pair of baskets from Peter Kinsella and Solorio (13 points, 3 assists). Elk Grove went 16 of 23 from the free-throw line, while Jacobs was 5 of 12.