advertisement

Jacobs makes a statement with rout of Elgin

The Jacobs boys basketball team gave the other 11 coaches in its Class 4A subsectional something to chew on Saturday with a 78-44 hammering of Elgin in Algonquin.

Four days after the Golden Eagles lost in overtime at St. Charles North - the sixth-place team in the Upstate Eight River - Jacobs manhandled that league's fifth-place team from start to finish.

It was an important statement by the two-time Fox Valley Conference Valley Division champions four days before coaches vote on seeds for subsectional A of the Rockford sectional. That grouping of 12 includes Jacobs, Huntley, DeKalb and nine Upstate Eight Conference teams.

"We have our eye on that at all times," said 6-foot-8 junior Cameron Krutwig, who led Jacobs with 25 points, 18 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 blocks. "(Elgin is) in our subsectional and we just beat them pretty bad. We don't know, really, where we're going to be seeded or anything. We just hope for the best."

Jacobs (20-5) broke out of its shooting slump in a big way. The Golden Eagles drained 28 of 49 attempts from the field (57.1 percent), including a 9-of-17 performance from 3-point range.

"We've been struggling from the outside recently," said Jacobs senior guard Kyle Ross, who dished 9 assists and scored 12 points, including a pair of 3-pointers. "To see them go in was really a confidence booster going into the end of the season."

The Golden Eagles led 19-11 after a quarter, 37-19 at the half and 58-33 after three quarters. They won the rebounding battle 39-19 and limited Elgin (16-9) to 3-of-31 shooting from 3-point range.

"Credit goes to Jacobs," Elgin coach Mike Sitter said. "They handled anything we threw at them whether it was zone or man, whether it was pressure or coming back. You're not going to get second shots, so you have to knock down your first shots. We actually got some open threes where we wanted them and layups at the rim, and we didn't hit those shots. You're only going to be one and done with Krutwig cleaning the boards."

Ryan Phillips finished with 9 points, Nik Balkcom had 8 points and Loen Nelson added 7 for Jacobs.

Senior wing Desmond Douglas and senior post Lavion Baldwin scored 10 points apiece, and junior Tim Wolf added 9 points for Elgin, which split 2 games this season against St. Charles North.

"Every time we play an Upstate Eight opponent it's big for us and it's big for our league," Jacobs coach Jim Roberts said. "They're good from top to bottom, but we feel we're pretty good, too. We didn't play real well on Tuesday because we didn't' shoot it well. Tonight we played well and we shot it well."

Article Comments
Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.