Jacobs pulls away from Elgin
With the seconds ticking off the clock at the end of the first half, and leading Elgin by just one, Jacobs' Cory Boeckh lobbed a pass toward the basket where Kenton Mack snatched the ball out of the air.
Instead of slamming it home, Mack let it gently roll off his fingers as time expired, giving the Golden Eagles a 3-point lead. Jacobs would expand its lead from there, rattling off an 11-0 run to start the third quarter before cruising to a comfortable 58-37 nonconference boys basketball win at Chesbrough Field House in Elgin Saturday.
It was the second time in as many quarters that the Golden Eagles (14-5) saw a last-second shot move their lead to 3, with Lavion Baldwin for Elgin making the first.
Baldwin managed to get a steal near half-court and went up uncontested as the first quarter drew to a close getting Elgin to within 3 points at 12-9, with 7 of those points coming from Baldwin.
That 3-point lead came after the Golden Eagles started the game on an 8-0 run, but poor shooting, just 37.5 percent from the field, left the door open for the Maroons.
After trading baskets to open the second quarter, the Golden Eagles' shooting started to go sour once again and 7 turnovers helped their lead diminish and eventually allowed Elgin to take a 21-20 before going into the break leading 26-23.
"I thought we did a good job to start the game, but then it looked like we didn't have a whole lot of energy," Jacobs' coach Jimmy Roberts said. "We would do something positive, and then compound it by doing something negative.
"We had a good possession at the end of the half. We went into the half and they did the talking. They knew where we stood and what we needed to do."
That meant amping up the defensive pressure that has become a signature during the Golden Eagles' current 6-game winning streak. Elgin was only able to get off 11 shots in the quarter while the offense for Jacobs hit its stride thanks in part to Boeckh.
With 9 of his 11 points for the game coming in third quarter, Boeckh helped the Golden Eagles get and maintain a double-digit lead. Cameron Krutwig also stepped up in the third, scoring 6 points, blocking a pair of shots and grabbing 4 rebounds.
"We don't sustain success very well and we don't sustain intensity very well," said Maroons' coach Mike Sitter about the third quarter. "We didn't play with the same intensity we played with against West Chicago, and that's the most disappointing part for me. You can't control whether the ball goes in the hoop or not, but you can control your intensity."
Taking a 45-32 advantage into the fourth quarter, and the bench players coming in, Jacobs kept the pressure up and held the Maroons (6-16) to just 5 points.
Matt Bindi finished with 12 points and 8 rebounds for Jacobs while Krutwig turned in a double-double with 12 points and 10 boards.
"The only big difference in our defense is that we're healthy," Roberts said about his defense which is holding opponents to 37.1 ppg during its winning streak. "We want to slam teams in the 30s, in the 40s, but we don't talk about goals. Sometimes when you set goals like that you give up 50."
Elgin was playing with a slightly different lineup with 3 sophomores - Reggie Cole, Courtese Cooper (6 rebounds, 4 blocks) and Tim Wolf - playing plenty of minutes as Sitter tries to find consistency in his team.
"Tim was averaging 25 points per game at the sophomore level, Cooper gives us a nice defensive presence because of his size that we didn't have before and Reggie is a point guard that helps take the pressure off Desmond Douglas," Sitter said of his new trio.
Baldwin hit the lone basket for the Maroons in the fourth quarter, a 3-pointer that gave him a game-high 19 points, while Douglas finished with 8 points and 5 steals.