Jackson, Carmel start hot, sink Mundelein
Hot shooting from beyond the 3-point arc early on proved to be a good omen when Carmel Catholic faced the host Mustangs Tuesday night in the second round of the Mundelein-Grant Thanksgiving Tournament.
Carmel senior Kaleb Jackson was on fire with four 3-pointers in the first 4:01 of the contest as the Corsairs jumped out to a 20-8 lead over Mundelein after one quarter.
From there, Carmel (2-0) put together a consistent effort on both ends of the floor as it led the Mustangs 31-18 at halftime and 49-27 after three quarters before rolling to a 61-35 nonconference victory.
Carmel (2-0) will face Lakes (0-2) at 1 p.m. Wednesday before Mundelein (1-1) hosts Deerfield (1-1) at 2:30 p.m. The final day of the tourney will take place on Saturday at Grant where the first, third, fifth, and seventh-place games will be held as all eight tourney teams will be joined at one site.
Jackson wound up hitting all five of his 3-pointers in the first half as he had 15 of his game-high 28 points at the intermission.
Cold shooting from the field plagued Mundelein throughout the contest. The Corsairs held a commanding 40-21 lead on two free throws by Ethan Matz before a basket by Jackson gave Carmel its biggest lead of the game at 45-24 with 1:33 left in the third quarter.
"We stayed aggressive. We knew they were going to play zone so coach (Dmitry Pirshin) told us to stay confident and look for our shots and they fell today," said Jackson, whose team beat Deerfield 57-54 on Monday. "We did a good job executing our game plan. It was just an overall good win for us and we'll move on from here."
Besides Jackson's big game on offense, Carmel got 9 points from Noah LaMora, 7 points from Bryce Smith, and 5 points from Jacob Chajet off the bench.
The Mustangs could never get rolling offensively, but Derek Bishop did lead the squad with 7 of his team-high 12 points in the first half. Senior Vinny Rogalski added 8 points followed by Caden Minehart with 7 points, and Evan Salvador with 5 points.
"They hit shots and we didn't. Jackson really shot the ball well, and we've got to be able to get solid possessions," said Mundelein coach Matt Badgley. "We got no second shots, but Rogalski played well for us and kept us fighting."
Pirshin was happy with the effort his team put forth on offense and defense against a lot of familiar faces in this crosstown showdown.
"We started hot. We got them out of the 1-3-1, and it was a good performance overall by everyone," said Pirshin. "He (Jackson) shot from 3 right away, and he hit some big shots so it was a really good performance by him."