Ledinsky, Jacobs work OT to beat Dundee-Crown
Jacobs trailed visiting rival Dundee-Crown by 3 points with time running out in regulation, but senior Nick Ledinsky kept his cool amid the madness.
Jacobs had two options on its final play: double screens for a shot by either Ledinsky or Will Schwerdtmann. The ball came to Schwerdtmann initially, but the Chargers had him well covered.
With 6 seconds left, Schwerdtmann sent a cross-court pass to Ledinsky along the left sideline. The 6-foot-4 forward bobbled the ball for an instant, recovered it inside the 3-point arc, cooly took a step back behind the line and drilled a game-tying, fadeaway 3-pointer at the buzzer to send the game to overtime.
“On the bobble, I actually got a second to look at the clock, so I knew how much time was left and how I could adjust my shot,” Ledninsky said. “It paid off.”
Ledinsky would later seal Jacobs’ 76-66 victory in double overtime by scoring 6 of his 20 points. His first steal of the second extra session proved to be the first of 6 Dundee-Crown turnovers in the period against the half-court trapping Golden Eagles.
“We came out thinking we were better than this team and we weren’t going to let it go any further,” Ledinsky said of Jacobs’ 12-2 dominance in double overtime.
Ledinsky opened double overtime with a 3-pointer from the top of the arc for a 67-64 lead, then he stole a pass and fed an assist to Jon Berndt for a transition layup. Ledinsky followed with a 3-pointer from the right corner to cap an 8-0 run from which Dundee-Crown (11-4, 2-1) could not recover. It was the last of 11 3-point field goals by Jacobs (8-7, 3-1).
“They made shots,” D-C coach Lance Huber said. “We could have done some things differently, but for the most part they just made shots, and that’s the name of the game. They were the ones to knock them down.”
Dundee-Crown trailed 64-62 late in the first overtime, but a bank shot high off the glass on a drive by Brandon Rodriguez (16 points) with 3.8 seconds left extended the game another four minutes.
Jacobs led 30-25 at halftime and 46-44 heading to the fourth quarter, but D-C was on the cusp of victory after Cordero Parson drove putback his own miss with 36 seconds left to give the Charges a 58-55 lead, which was Ledinsky’s cue to step into the spotlight.
Though the shot to tie the game had a high degree of difficulty, his coach and teammates had faith in the attempt having seen their teammate drill it in practice with regularity.
“He does that all the time in practice,” Jacobs coach Jim Hinkle said. “When we work on our shooting, it’s timed. He’ll get the ball and just hold it until the clock is running down, then fade away and shoot it.”
“He knocks those shots down in practice all the time,” said Schwerdtmann, who led all scorers with 25 points on 10-of-21 shooting. “It was a good shot. We took it to overtime and then took over from there.”
The win was the second straight and eighth in 11 games for Jacobs since its 0-4 start.
“I really hope to take this through the rest of the season,” Ledninsky said. “This is going to be a big win for us, I think. We really just showed what we were about in this game. It was a great team effort.”
Lake Ojo scored 16 points and Berndt added 8 for Jacobs. Dundee-Crown’s Dylan Kissack finished with 16 points to match Rodriguez for team high, and JT Beasley scored 15 points and dished 3 assists for the Chargers.