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George's fortitude helps Jacobs drop Huntley

Rather than fight Mother Nature, Jacobs pitcher Ryan George wrapped his arms around her and squeezed.

An already chilly, breezy afternoon was made more challenging midway though Friday's Fox Valley Conference Valley Division baseball game in Huntley when a steady rain began to fall.

George, a right-hander, said he had to land his plant foot softly with each pitch because mud quickly caked his spikes and made them useless.

He was spinning upon each landing, but he dealt with it.

“There's really nothing you can do about that,” George said of the weather, “so just try to embrace it and work though it.”

The senior did just that in a 5-2 victory that ran his personal record to 5-0 and improved Jacobs to 17-3 overall, 7-0 in the FVC Valley.

George used a mix of cut fastballs, sinkers and sliders of varying speeds to strike out 11 — including the last two Red Raiders he faced in the sixth inning — while surrendering only 2 earned runs on 4 hits and a walk.

Junior closer Johnny Rohde pitched a scoreless seventh inning to earn his 8th save in 8 opportunities, but he had to work for it. Two errors by Jacobs infielders allowed Huntley to bring the potential tying run to the plate, but Rohde struck out the No. 9 hitter on a 2-2 pitch to seal the win.

“I thought Ryan George was excellent and Rohde did a good job,” Jacobs coach Jamie Murray said. “Good enough to win. We didn't play our best ball, but I thought we pitched pretty well and played pretty good D for the most part and got the hits when we needed to.”

Jacobs' leadoff hitters reached base in every inning against either Huntley starting pitcher Brandon Altergott (1-1) or reliever DJ Cruz. The Golden Eagles tallied single runs in the second, third, fourth, sixth and seventh innings, highlighted by Matt Kozlak's solo home run in the third and Jeff Sidor's 2 doubles.

“I was just trying to make contact today and hit the ball the other way with a good pitcher on the mound,” said Sidor, who scored the game's first run in the second inning on Casey Dennison's infield single and drove in its last with a seventh-inning double.

Despite trouble in almost every inning, Huntley (5-12, 3-4) stayed competitive until the 21st out was recorded by not allowing the Golden Eagles to hang crooked numbers on the scoreboard, an encouraging sign for a young team.

“We've been kind of down the last couple of games and haven't brought forth the effort we threw out there today,” Huntley coach Andy Jakubowski said. “I was proud of the way our guys competed. We had the tying run up at-bat and Altergott on the back side. We were happy to be in that position. We just got beat by a better pitcher.”

The teams are scheduled to complete their 2-game series on Saturday, weather permitting.

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