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No. 1 Jacobs rolls past Crystal Lake South

Kameron Mack doesn't mind coming off the bench. He actually savors the role.

Mack scored 11 points including hitting three 3-pointers as Jacobs cruised to a 66-33 win over Crystal Lake South in Fox Valley Conference boys basketball action in Algonquin Saturday afternoon.

"I don't worry about starting or not," said Mack. "I just want to help the team. The second unit pushes the first team everyday in practice so everybody is ready to play on game day. I try to watch our opponent when I am on the bench to start a game so I am ready to play once I get in the game. I hit my first shot today so that really helped with my confidence."

Jacobs coach Jim Roberts realizes the value of Mack as a reserve.

"Kam gives us energy and length when he comes in the game," said Roberts. "He does an excellent job of executing the offense and he came in today and really gave us a boost."

The Gators (5-10, 1-3) had major upset on their mind early in the game as Kyle Leva and Matt Meyers connected on 3-pointers to give the visitors an early 6-0 lead with 6:33 left in the first quarter.

That momentum for South was short lived as Jacobs, the No. 1 ranked team in the Daily Herald Top 20, scored the next 8 points - 6 by Cameron Krutwig along with a basket by Mason Materna - to take an 8-6 lead with 4:33 left in the initial quarter.

The Golden Eagles (13-0, 4-0) never looked back.

With Krutwig scoring 12 and Mack 8, Jacobs built up a 13-point cushion, 32-19, after 16 minutes of action. Jacobs' biggest advantage of the game was 34, 64-30, with 1:22 left after a 3-pointer from Jack Nickoley.

"They are an excellent team with a great player in Krutwig and a lot of other very good players," said Crystal Lake South coach Matt LePage of the Golden Eagles. 'They have great depth and they can score in so many ways. I like the way we started making 3s but it is hard to win that way. We had way too many turnovers in the second half."

Krutwig, in less than 3 quarters of play, paced Jacobs with 16 points, 11 rebounds and 3 blocked shots.

"I didn't even think of the fact we hadn't played in 10 days," said Roberts. "It just seemed like a long time since we played. We have an experienced team so we didn't lose our composure when South hit the 3s early. We knew everything would be OK. We held South to 19 points in the last 3 quarters and really cranked up the defense."

Meyers paced South with 10 points.

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