Baseball: Jacobs shuts out rival Dundee-Crown

Updated: May 16, 2012 10:20PM

Two days after Dundee-Crown and Jacobs combined to score 31 runs, the teams came back to Earth offensively on Wednesday in each school’s final Fox Valley Valley game.

This time around the Golden Eagles got strong pitching and took advantage of two big errors leading to all five runs in a 5-0 win to spoil D-C’s senior night.

Jacobs finishes the season a perfect 3-0 against its rival, while upping its record to 18-14 overall and ending 12-7 in conference. The loss drops D-C to 8-18-1 overall, and a 5-14 finish in conference.

“We talked about it being senior day here and we knew it was going to be a dogfight,” Jacobs coach Jamie Murray said. “We hadn’t won here in a few years. They protect their field very well.”

Junior Max Rider (3-2) earned the win, allowing four hits and two walks and striking out three over five innings He worked out of two-on, two-out jams in the first and second innings as the Chargers stranded a total of nine runners.

“I started to settle down and get into the groove after the first couple innings,” Rider said. “I was hitting my spots and throwing outside where the umpire was calling it.”

Jacobs grabbed a 1-0 lead in the top of the first on an errant throw from the catcher to third base on a pick-off play.

The Golden Eagles looked ready to extend their lead in the fourth with runners on second and third with no outs and Greg Sidor at the plate. Sidor sent a fly ball to the outfield, but D-C center fielder Jake Romano made the catch and fired a bullet to the plate to get the runner tagging from third. D-C pitcher Erik Brewer then induced a fly out to end the threat.

However, the momentum was short-lived for D-C as Rider was able to shut down the Chargers in the bottom half of the inning.

“That was a big momentum-turner,” Murray said. “For Max to come out and bring the momentum back to us was great.”

The Golden Eagles broke the game open in the top of the fifth by scoring four unearned runs, the big blow being a two-out, two-run single from senior Zac Camacho to extend the lead to 5-0.

Brewer (2-6), a senior, took the loss despite allowing zero earned runs on five hits over 4 2/3 innings.

“You can always count on a solid effort from Brewer,” D-C coach Tom Parisi said. “He’s a good, experienced pitcher. He hits his spots and has a nice curve ball and can throw pretty hard.”

Senior Mike Hazelhurst had two hits to pace the Charger offense.

Mark Self and Camacho each went 2-for-4 at the plate to help Jacobs.

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