Risky move pays off as Jacobs upends Cary-Grove
It was a gutsy call, to be sure. But it worked.
Here's the situation. Jacobs leads Cary-Grove 3-0 in the top of the seventh inning at Jacobs. Cary-Grove has runners at second and third with two outs and No. 3 hitter Lindsay Efflandt coming to the plate. Jacobs coach Jeremy Bauer elects to intentionally walk the hard-hitting Efflandt - for the second consecutive time - bringing cleanup hitter Abbe Wienckowski to the plate as the potential go-ahead run.
Wienckowski proceeded to make everyone's heart skip a beat as she sent a slicing line drive to right field. But Jacobs right fielder Brooke Frederiksen tracked it down, gloved it, and with the ball showing on the tip of her glove, made the catch to preserve the Fox Valley Conference Valley Division win for the Golden Eagles and hand the Trojans (15-6, 6-1) their first Valley loss of the season.
"We had all the charts we needed to back up that decision," said Jacobs coach Jeremy Bauer.
The decision wasn't made to walk Efflandt until Jacobs (10-6, 4-3) got the second out of the inning on a runners interference call.
"It was a tough decision but once we got the second out with the interference call we decided to go for it," said Bauer. "Marissa (Lombardo) made a nice pitch and Brooke made a great catch out there."
"Abbe gave it a heck of an effort. (Frederiksen) made a nice catch," said Cary-Grove coach Tammy Olson.
Jacobs jumped ahead with 2 runs off the freshman Efflandt in the bottom of the first. Junior Jenna Teson (2-for-2) led off with a solid single, Sara Jacobson reached when Cary-Grove threw high on her sacrifice bunt and after a Kelsey Peterson single loaded the bases, the Trojans made an error on Lombardo's liner that allowed Teson and Jacobson to score.
The Golden Eagles added a run in the fifth when Teson and Jacobson put together back-to-back triples to lead off the inning.
"I just saw it was a little inside and I got it to the gap," said Teson, who helped her team bounce back from a tough loss to Crystal Lake South. "This is a big win for us. We suffered a loss Monday so it's good to jump back from that."
Lombardo pitched one of her better games of the season for Jacobs, allowing 5 hits, inducing nine "in the air" outs, and benefiting from a stellar defensive effort that included two superb catches from Teson at shortstop. Lombardo struck out three and walked three.
" I was really relaxed today and happy that my teammates backed me up," said Lombardo.
Lombardo wasn't nervous walking Efflandt, who doubled off her in the first inning, and facing Wienckowski with the game on the line.
"We just thought that we got (Wienckowski) before," Lombardo said. "We got her to put it in play and Brooke made an amazing catch."
Cary-Grove, which got a double from Sam Baratta, left 10 runners on base.
"We weren't sharp today," said Olson. "We made errors early in the game, we left 10 on base, and you can't do that. We popped a lot of stuff up and didn't capitalize when we had runners on."