It's Another Tough Loss for the Rams

In better news, the Grayslake Rams are unbeaten in Class 3A basketball this winter. No need to fret about that 0-5 mark in Class 4A ball this year.

Of course no one is happy with Friday night's 50-47 road loss to Jacobs. Especially head coach Brian Moe who watched his Rams club cough up a three point lead with two minutes to play. The Jacobs lead was down to 1 point with 48 seconds to play but the Rams (1-5) had a tough time getting a shot off.

"We had a couple of turnovers and gave up two layups late,'' Moe said. "We are still fighting ourselves sometimes. And we are still figuring out where we are supposed to be.''

The close loss overshadowed a strong performance from Central center CJ Stempeck. He tallied a team-high 18 points. Jordan Taylor had 11 of his 13 points in the first half. Casey Blake chipped in 8 points.

Again, Central's nutty early-season schedule has played into the slow start. Thursday will mark the team's first home game of the season when Cary-Grove visits. And that will mark the end of the home schedule for 2010. That's right one home game in the first two months of the season.

So far the road schedule has produced some close games. Naturally most of these games produced losses.

"Other than that first quarter against Mundelein, every game has been close,'' Moe said. "We are trying to put the pieces together. For various reasons, we didn't have everyone together over the summer. It's like we are 25 days behind everyone else."

With his two big men in the lineup, Stempeck and Boyle, the Rams would seem to have a height advantage when Cary visits on Thursday (7 p.m.)

"Those Cary players seems to be all the same size,'' Moe said. "We are lot bigger than them. But we will still have to handle the boards."

And after the Cary Grove game there will be another 13 days off. The State Farm Holiday Classic doesn't kick off until Dec. 27 in Bloomington.