Boys lacrosse: Crystal Lake Central earns first conference win with 9-1 victory over Jacobs

CRYSTAL LAKE – Crystal Lake Central’s players needed to respond in their game against Jacobs on Thursday night.

Huntley handed the Tigers their first loss of the season April 7 when the Red Raiders won, 16-1, and the Tigers wanted to show they could do better than the lopsided score indicated.

Crystal Lake Central responded against Jacobs, winning 9-1, earning its first Fox Valley Conference win of the season.

“We came into this game with a lot of passion,” Michael Cruz said. “We needed a win here, and we got it.”

Cruz got the scoring going for Central (4-1, 1-1 FVC), his first of his four goals in the game, when he threw the ball at the net and scored with 6:55 left in the first quarter. He scored another about 2 minutes later when the Tigers had a man advantage to make it 2-0.

Ernest Mentz made it 3-0 when he scored with 5:26 left in the second quarter, and the Tigers scored two more times in the next 90 seconds, with goals coming from Cruz and Mentz, respectively, to make it 5-0.

Mentz scored his third goal with one second left in the first half.

Central continued to take advantage of its better matchups in the second half, with goals from Cruz, Logan McCrea and Will Meyers. The Tigers moved the ball effectively on the run, especially in the first half, which helped them run out to a lead in a game they never trailed.

“I think we play well in transition and have some good athletes between the lines,” Central coach Leo Zimmerman said. “That helps us get looks. That really helped us get looks early in the game.”

Jacobs (0-3, 0-1 FVC) played only its third game of the season with an inexperienced group. The Golden Eagles came out flat to start the game and couldn’t match the Tigers’ intensity.

Phillip Pelicone broke up the shutout with 10:45 left in the third quarter when he scored on a delayed penalty.

Jacobs coach John Bigler thought his team came out better in the second half and limited what Central could do, but he knows his players don’t have the same experience as their opponents.

The team had games canceled and rescheduled because of weather, which has made it tough for some of his new players to find the right rhythm to compete with teams like Central.

“It’s hard to get into a rhythm,” Bigler said. “This spring has been rough, we’ve had some weird things already this season and we have new guys, so it’s hard to get them into a rhythm because they don’t know what it’s really supposed to be like.”

Jacobs will host Hampshire on Tuesday while Crystal Lake Central will host Marian Central on the same day.

While Zimmerman was happy to get the win against Jacobs, he knows his players played sloppily in parts of the second half and that they can reach another level if they play more succinctly.

“We have glimpses of really good play, and then we get sloppy and fall apart other times,” Zimmerman said. “I think when we’re playing at our best we can be one of the best teams in the conference. When we’re at our worst, we’re not quite there. We just need to try to keep it together for an entire game.”