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Jacksonville’s Joe Reif cheers on his teammates after getting a walk during the Crimsons’ game against Mascoutah in the semifinals of the Troy Triad Sectional on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Dennis Mathes | Journal-Courier<\/p>\n
TROY \u2014 The winningest season in the history of Jacksonville baseball came to an end Wednesday with a 5-1 loss to Mascoutah in the semifinals of the Troy Triad Sectional.<\/p>\n
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Jacksonville finished with a record of 27-8.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI left everything out there today,\u201d Jacksonville senior pitcher\u00a0AJ Charpentier said. \u201cObviously, they\u2019re one of the top-ranked teams in the state. We knew that coming in. But we were ready. We didn\u2019t execute here and there, but overall, it wasn\u2019t a terrible game for us. We just didn\u2019t make the plays we needed to when we needed to make the plays. Hits weren\u2019t falling. That\u2019s just baseball, and that\u2019s how it goes sometimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut overall, this was a great group, and I wouldn\u2019t have wanted to do it with anybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacksonville\u2019s five seniors \u2014\u00a0Charpentier, Cy Kershaw, Joe Reif, Nolan Peters, and Talan Harney, a North Greene transfer who joined the team this year \u2014 enjoyed one of the best four-year stretches in school history, with three straight seasons of 21 or more wins, and two regional championships. Before they arrived, Jacksonville hadn\u2019t won a regional since 2007.<\/p>\n
Some wept openly as they walked off the field for the last time.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI was not expecting this, this season,\u201d Jacksonville coach Cory\u00a0Bunner said. \u201cIt\u2019s a testament to the guys and their trust in us as coaches. That’s been great. We had a great group of seniors that have been here that have done it. Just a fantastic season. You never want the season to end, but this year has been unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was not a group of baseball superstars. Not one of the five seniors plans to play baseball in college. But all five were dedicated to the game, and to one another.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think these kids really enjoyed playing with each other, and they supported each other,\u201d\u00a0Bunner said. \u201cThe energy in the dugout was great every single game. And hopefully in 10 years, these kids are still coming back. That’s one of the things I always leave with the seniors. I don’t want them to be strangers. They’re a part of our family, our baseball family. And just looking around today and seeing some of the former players here, that’s why you do this. That’s why I do it, is for the relationships with these guys. It just makes it all worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacksonville put up a fight against\u00a0Mascoutah, ranked No. 16 in Prep Baseball Report\u2019s statewide rankings, which include teams from all classifications. After Mascoutah scored single runs in the first and second innings to take a 2-0 lead, the Crimsons struck back with one in the third.<\/p>\n
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With one out,\u00a0Harney singled and went to second on an error by the left fielder. Harney advanced to third on a passed ball and scored on a bunt by Ryan Headen.<\/p>\n
It was tough going for the Crimsons at the plate after that against\u00a0Mascoutah starting pitcher Nolan Lebert, who held Jacksonville to four hits with six strikeouts and a walk. Two double-plays ended potential rallies in the first and fourth innings. Lebert, a senior, will play for Olivet Nazarene University next year.<\/p>\n
The Indians finally pulled away with three runs in the sixth inning.<\/p>\n
The Crimsons never quit. Jack\u00a0Rohlk doubled leading off the bottom of the seventh, and Peters singled to put two on with nobody out. Lebert retired the next three in order to end the game.<\/p>\n
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Charpentier gave up five runs \u2014 one earned \u2014 on just three hits in five-and-two-thirds innings of work. He struck out five and walked three. Kershaw shut out Mascoutah on one hit over the final inning-and-one-third with a strikeout and a walk.<\/p>\n
Charpentier credited Kershaw\u2019s effort in the regional championship game for getting the Crimsons to sectionals for the second time in three years. \u201cWe came in with a lot of confidence today but unfortunately, couldn\u2019t get it done,\u201d Charpentier said.<\/p>\n
The school record for wins snuck up on the Crimsons. \u201cOh, it\u2019s big,\u201d\u00a0Charpentier said. \u201cObviously, we weren\u2019t really looking at it that much throughout the season, and then kind of toward the end we heard about the win record, and we were like, wow.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd yeah, we ended up getting it there, and winning a regional title at the same time. It was really cool to have that combination.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Jacksonville won eight straight games heading into sectionals. Before Wednesday\u2019s loss, the Crimsons had won 20 of their last 22 games.<\/p>\n
The five seniors put in the work, and made history.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve worked hard all four years of high school,\u201d\u00a0Charpentier said. \u201cWe\u2019ve done the extra things, we\u2019ve done the little things. That\u2019s really kind of what separated this group as a whole as well.<\/p>\n
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\u201cObviously these seniors \u2014 myself, Joe Reif, Nolan Peters, Cy Kershaw and Talan \u2014 we all bought in from the beginning. We knew it was going to be a tough season, but yeah, we pushed through, we worked our butts off, and this is what got us to where we are today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacksonville’s Joe Reif cheers on his teammates after getting a walk during the Crimsons’ game against Mascoutah in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,95177,118,117,110,124804],"class_list":["post-296127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-baseball","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-sports","tag-troy-triad-sectional"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}