Jacobs bounces back with win over McHenry
Jacobs boys basketball coach Jim Roberts just needed to glance at the scoring portion of the stat sheet to see why his team was victorious in McHenry Friday night.
Led by a 16-point effort from Loyola recruit Cam Krutwig along with 10 points each from Cooper Schwartz and Ryan Phillips, the Golden Eagles ground out a 54-40 win over the host Warriors in Fox Valley Conference action.
The Golden Eagles (15-1, 6-1) bounced back from their first setback of the season last Saturday, a 50-41 FVC loss to Prairie Ridge in Algonquin.
"We played Jacobs basketball tonight," said Roberts. "We showed some toughness which is good to see. Cam leads the way and we have several other players contributing. The PR loss was only one loss and we knew we would be fine but we had to talk about it and reflect upon it because it was our first loss of the season. The kids came out and played well and beat a very good McHenry team on their home court."
Runs at the end of the first half and beginning of the third quarter propelled the Eagles to victory.
After a 3-pointer from Matt Mohr, McHenry held a 16-11 lead with 3:48 left in the first half.
The Golden Eagles cranked up the defensive pressure and scored the next 8 points on 3 layups from Krutwig and a 15-footer in the lane from Nik Balkcom to lead 19-16 with 2:28 remaining before the break.
Phillips beat the buzzer to end the half with a layup to give Jacobs a 28-21 lead at intermission.
The Golden Eagles seized control of the game early in the third quarter.
With Schwartz scoring 8 points including a pair of treys and Mason Materna scoring on a putback, Jacobs started the third quarter on a 10-4 run to increase the margin to 38-25 with 1:26 left in the third quarter.
Jacobs' biggest advantage of the game was 16, 48-32, with 5:11 remaining in the game after a layup from Phillips off an assist by Krutwig.
"In the first half, we were caught up playing in a frantic rush," said Schwartz. "We were playing McHenry basketball not Jacobs basketball. We cranked up the defensive pressure and we hit some outside shots which loosened up things inside for Cam. It was a good bounce back win after the loss to PR."
Along with 16 points which included a 3-pointer, Krutwig collected 12 rebounds with 4 assists and 5 blocked shots.
Gavin Markgraff led the Warriors with 15 points.