Jacobs shoots lights out against Lakes

Ben Murray called Saturday night’s shooting performance by the Jacobs boys basketball team its best of the season.

Jacobs shot 74 percent in the first three quarters against Lakes and went on to a 67-51 victory in Pool I play at the Hinkle Holiday Classic at Jacobs.

“It’s a little different from the start of the season. We couldn’t hit any shots at the start of the season,” said Murray, who scored 20 points on 5 of 7 shooting. “We’ve been working on it. We finally found our stroke.”

While most of Jacobs baskets were in close, it did hit 5 3-pointers in the first half. Murray hit 3 3-pointers and Chris Orange nailed two.

Jacobs (3-3) was 20-for-27 from the floor during the first three quarters. But Lakes (2-7) stayed close for most of the game.

Lakes trailed by just 4, 22-18, despite Jacobs shooting 80 percent in the first quarter. Jacob Balliu’s 3-point play to open the second quarter got Lakes within 1, 22-21. Jacobs used a 9-1 run to extend its lead to 36-28 at halftime. Jacobs’ lead was down to 6, 38-32, 2 minutes into the second half, but that was as close as Lakes would get.

“We had a hard time stringing together multiple solid possessions on both ends of the court,” Lakes coach Chris Snyder said. “We playing young right now and just need to kind of get past that here and avoid those stretches.”

Orange finished with 17 points for Jacobs, which never trailed and finished shooting 65 percent (24-for-37). Freshman Cameron Krutwig added 10 points and 10 rebounds.

Balliu and David Milostan each scored 12 points to lead Lakes.