Baseball: Robertson finishes South Elgin’s regional championship win over St. Charles North
“Grinder.”
The kind of player that South Elgin baseball coach Jim Kating wanted to take the ball in a big game for his Storm against St. Charles North was on the mound Saturday morning.
Jacob Robertson had no hesitation. With a one-run lead and South Elgin three outs away from a regional championship, Robertson wanted the ball.
The junior right-hander tossed his only 1-2-3 inning of the day to finish off his complete game in a 4-3 victory over St. Charles North to win the Class 4A Batavia regional championship.
Kating referenced a season-ending loss a year ago to the North Stars in the sectional semifinals as even more motivation for his team.
“He’s a grinder,” Kating said of Robertson. “He’s done a great job for us all year on the mound. He wanted to throw against these guys and he more than delivered.
“They got us last year by one run and the kids were looking forward to this opportunity and playing them again.”
After allowing a run in each of the previous three innings, Robertson took the mound against the heart of the North Stars order in the seventh. After inducing a ground ball back to him for an out to start the inning, Robertson finished off the game with back-to-back strikeouts after striking out just one hitter over the first six innings.
He finished with eight hits allowed but forced St. Charles North to strand seven runners on base.
“I know I have a great defense behind me. They have been doing it all year,” Robertson said. “I absolutely wanted to finish [the game]. It’s great knowing my coaches and teammates have all of the confidence in the world in me to go out there and get the job done.”
“Jacob is a guy that you just always have confidence in,” said centerfielder Connor Lund, who scored two of the four South Elgin runs. “He’s just ready to go every time he’s out there. If you see him on the bus before the game, he’s locked in. You talk to him and he’s all friendly, but when it comes game time, he’s ready to go.”
South Elgin (23-11) took advantage of a North Stars error in the third to take a 2-0 lead, but St. Charles North (22-13) battled back with runs in the fourth and fifth — the latter on a two-out RBI double from Mason Netcel to tie the game.
The Storm capitalized on another St. Charles North error with two outs in the fifth to score two more runs, which included Robertson helping his own cause with an RBI single that proved to be the game-winning knock.
“We had been playing so well,” St. Charles North coach Todd Genke said. “You have to tip your cap to [Robertson] for keeping us off balance for a lot of today. We hit some balls well and they made some plays and that’s baseball. We just have to do a better job in controlling the controllables. You have to give [South Elgin] credit. They played hard and made the plays when they needed to. We had our chances and that’s all you can ask for but just didn’t come through and that’s the story of the game.”
Keaton Reinke took the loss for the North Stars, allowing four runs (one earned) on four hits while striking out nine. Reinke also doubled in the sixth and came around to score to get St. Charles North back within one, but Robertson retired the final four batters of the game to seal the victory.
Matt Kelly added a pair of RBI singles for the North Stars in the loss.
South Elgin will take on Bartlett (19-16-1) at 2 p.m. Wednesday in the 4A Willowbrook sectional semifinals. Bartlett knocked off top-seeded Willowbrook, 8-1, on Saturday.