South Elgin hangs on to down Jacobs

Give the South Elgin boys basketball team a lead in the final minutes, even a slim one, and forget about it.

After trailing by as many as 10 points in the first half, Jacobs clawed back within 3 of the visiting Storm in the fourth quarter Thursday evening, but point guard Jake Maestranzi and his South Elgin teammates iced the ball with three minutes remaining and hit their free throws down the stretch to come away with a 46-41 nonconference victory in Algonquin.

South Elgin sank 9 of its 14 free throws in the fourth quarter, including a 7-of-8 performance in the final 1:23.

“They were only up by 3, but they have a whole bunch of guys who can handle the ball very well,” Jacobs coach Jim Hinkle said. “It's not a team you want to be behind in the last couple minutes of a game.”

“We had the lead and we knew they had 6 fouls,” South Elgin coach Chaz Taft said. “We knew they had to foul and we're getting points out of that. So we just waited it out until they fouled.”

Jacobs (1-4) pulled within one possession after senior guard Bobby Mladenovic stole the ball, scored a layup and drew the foul for a three-point play with 3:12 to play. He led Jacobs with 11 points off the bench.

But the Storm took possession and passed the ball around between Maestranzi, sophomore guard Darius Wells and senior guard Eric Stazy until Maestranzi was fouled with 1:23 left. He drilled both ends of the bonus to edge South Elgin (5-4) ahead 41-36.

“They're so methodical in the way they run their offense,” Jacobs senior Alex Glover said. “They're very patient, especially at the end. They were able to run the clock down at the end and hit their free throws, and we couldn't stop that.”

Jacobs missed shots on its 2 ensuing possessions and Maestranzi and Stazy each sank both ends of the bonus to extend the Storm lead to 45-36 with 35 seconds remaining.

Jacobs fell behind after a slow start for the second straight game. South Elgin jumped to a 10-2 lead and maintained it throughout the first half, thanks to 5-of-12 shooting from 3-point range. Stazy drained all 3 of his 3-pointers in the first half.

“The first five or six minutes I thought we were outplayed on both ends of the floor,” Hinkle said. “We didn't execute our offense well and we also didn't play defense the way we wanted to. By halftime I thought we had everything corrected and we did fine.”

Jacobs took its first and only lead of the game early in the third quarter. Trailing 25-21 at halftime, the Golden Eagles scored on a hook by Glover and a 3-pointer by Lake Ojo to take a 26-25 advantage, but a Maestranzi 3-pointer helped the Storm take a 31-28 lead after three quarters.

Wells hit a key basket in the fourth quarter when he sank a 3-pointer and drew a foul. His free throw gave the Storm a 39-31 lead with 4:05 to play.

“We knew we had to hit the open shots,” said Wells, who finished with 11 points to support Maestranzi's 15.