Baseball: Jacobs' Rohde battling arm discomfort

Jacobs hard-throwing senior pitcher Johnny Rohde has been shut down for a month for precautionary reasons, Golden Eagles coach Jamie Murray confirmed Wednesday.

A Daily Herald All-Area selection last season when he converted 12 of 13 save opportunities for a team that finished third in Class 4A, Rohde felt arm discomfort prior to his scheduled start against Plainfield North on March 28 during the team's spring trip to southern Illinois.

Junior Brad Demkovich, who was penciled in to inherit the closer role Rohde excelled in last year, started that game instead and threw a 4-hit shutout with 5 strikeouts and no walks.

Rohde has since consulted with an orthopedist who found no structural damage, Murray said. The fifth-year coach said the plan is to be overly cautious with the right-hander, who is committed to Indiana Wesleyan. He will remain idle through the end of April and then re-evaluated.

"I think everything will be fine," Murray said. "We could have said he's fine in two weeks, but I want him to be an asset at the end rather than work through some stuff and not be as good as he could be. He's resting for a couple of weeks. I'm very confident he'll be at the top of his game by the time we come back from prom around May 1. He's just working on getting back to where he needs to be to be able to throw in a game because he brings it at 90 mph."

Meanwhile, Demkovich is making the most of his opportunity as a starter. In his second start on Saturday in a 20-2 victory at Woodstock North, the left-hander allowed an earned run on 3 hits and 3 walks in 5 innings and struck out 9. In 16⅓ innings, Demkovich has posted a 0.43 ERA and 0.86 WHIP.

Rohde's role down the stretch will depend on when he returns, his coach said.

"I think it'll be a great shot in the arm because he probably will slide right back into the closer spot for us and pick up where we were last year," Murray said. "It depends on whether he has time to build up that arm strength again. He's got a college career in front of him so I'm going to err on the side of caution. It's worked out where Demkovich has stepped up."

Vikings launch early attack: Geneva's series-opening 6-4 win over St. Charles East on Tuesday staked the Vikings to a 4-0 start in the Upstate Eight Conference's River Division.

Geneva opened UEC play with a 3-game sweep of Streamwood (1-7, 0-4).

Though the Saints rebounded at home on Wednesday to hand the Vikings their first UEC loss of the season, 5-1, Geneva coach Matt Hahn said he likes what he has seen in the early going from his Vikings, particularly on the mound and in the field. Both phases were exemplified Tuesday in pitcher Noah Davison's complete-game victory in which the Geneva defense made a lone error.

"I really like the way we're playing," Hahn said. "Every time we needed a big out, (Davison) came through and got us a big out. And our defense has been fantastic all year. Those two things are going to keep you in every game. Offensively, it seems like we have somebody different every game that comes through for us. You put it all together and it's a perfect storm."

"We just want to keep it rolling, keep working hard and hope for the best," Davison said.

Though his team was 8-3 at the time, Hahn said some offensive opportunities have gone by the wayside, for example, a bases-loaded situation with no outs against St. Charles East that yielded no runs.

"If we're going to nitpick, I'd say that's the biggest thing," Hahn said. "We need to do a better job coming through in key situations - not put pressure on ourselves - but more in the sense that 'I'm going to be the guy that comes through for us today.' For the most part we have."

ICYMI: Cary-Grove senior Danny Schmidt threw a perfect game on Tuesday, April 5 against Woodstock.

The 6-foot-3, 181-pound senior needed only 80 pitches to strike out 10 Blue Streaks. He threw 57 of 80 pitches for strikes and started 14 of the 21 batters he faced with a strike.

Overall, Schmidt is 2-0 with an ERA of 0.64. In 11 innings he has allowed a lone earned run on 3 hits, issued 1 walk and struck out 15.

Your UEC River-leading Maroons: Elgin opened the season with 6 straight losses, but the Maroons were all smiles on Monday after completing a 3-game sweep of rival Larkin.

The Maroons played dependable defense throughout the series and received solid pitching performances. Senior Eddy Ramos won the middle game and senior Brandon Stork bookended the series with complete-game victories. Elgin outscored the rebuilding Royals (2-7, 0-5), who played as many as five sophomores simultaneously, 13-6 over 3 games.

"We played well," Elgin coach David Foerster said. "In our first 6 games we had stretches where we played decent, but we also had stretches where were didn't play very well. The biggest thing is we played 7 innings pretty much the whole series."

The Maroons moved to 4-8 overall on Wednesday with a 9-7 win over West Chicago in a scheduled nonconference game.