Jacobs nets elusive win over Prairie Ridge
The Jacobs baseball program has rattled off an impressive series of firsts since fourth-year coach Jamie Murray took over.
His teams have won the first regional title in program history, its first sectional title, notched its first 20-win season and appeared in back-to-back sectional finals for the first time.
One thing Jacobs had yet to do in three seasons under Murray or in the three previous seasons when he was varsity pitching coach?
Beat Prairie Ridge.
The Golden Eagles crossed that achievement off their to-do list Friday, when they rode the strong arm of Ohio-bound right-hander Ryan Sargent for 6 strong innings and capitalized on 5 Wolves errors to score a 7-1 Fox Valley Conference crossover victory in a rematch of a 2014 sectional title game in Crystal Lake.
"I'm just happy for coach," Sargent said. "This is the only team we haven't beaten since he's been here. I knew he wanted this one, so I'm really happy that we got this win for him."
Sargent (2-1) limited Prairie Ridge (6-3, 1-1) to an earned run on 4 hits and a walk and struck out 4 in 6 innings. He outdueled Bradley-bound right-hander Ben Cilano (1-1), who defeated the Golden Eagles last year during the regular season. Cilano yielded 4 runs (1 earned) on 5 hits and 3 walks. He exited after throwing 94 pitches in 4⅓ innings.
"Our plan going in was to look for the fastball, attack it and get the pitch count up," Murray said. "We got his pitch count up early and that was it. He's a great pitcher. I'm proud of our guys."
Sargent gave his team an early lift by escaping a first-inning jam. After he allowed a leadoff double to Chris Slack and hit Hunter Martin with a pitch, he induced a groundball to shortstop Matt Kozlak for the first out. He then struck out cleanup man Cal Aldridge on a fastball and fanned Carson Getzelman via a curveball to end the inning.
"He threw breaking balls in fastball counts, which I knew he would do," Prairie Ridge coach Glen Pecoraro said. "He pitched well and kept us off-balance and we didn't muster much offense. When you're not playing defense, you'd better be able to swing the bat and we didn't do either."
The Wolves took a 1-0 lead in the second inning on No. 9 hitter James Mikolajczewski's two-out single, but Jacobs tied it in the third on a sacrifice fly by Sargent that was preceded by Mike Addante's leadoff single and Matt Kozlak's second double of the game.
Prairie Ridge unraveled defensively in the top of the fourth with two away. On a 3-2 count with runners at second and third, Kozlak chopped a high one-hopper to third base, but the throw from Aldridge pulled his first baseman off the bag, allowing Casey Dennison to score the go-ahead run.
The Wolves made matters worse by throwing across the diamond in an attempt to keep Addante from advancing to third base, but the errant throw went down the line and Addante scored to stake the Golden Eagles to a 3-1 lead.
Jacobs scored 3 more unearned runs in the seventh. The floodgates opened when a two-out roller off the bat of Casey Dennison was bobbled for a 2-run error. Six of its 7 runs were unearned.
"It's a big win for our guys to give us some momentum," said Kozlak, who went 2-for-4. "That's a good team. We've really got our confidence up hitting-wise."