Jacksonville baseball ties wins record, reaches Mattoon Regional final

Jacksonville High School baseball kept one of its strongest runs in years going by tying the program’s single-season wins record and beating Mattoon 6-2 to reach the Mattoon Regional championship game.

The Crimsons improved to 26-7 and have now won 14 of their last 15 games and 19 of their last 21, a stretch that has turned this spring into one of the most notable local sports stories in west-central Illinois. Jacksonville entered the postseason as the No. 2 seed, and the latest result showed a team that has not just survived bracket play but handled it with the poise of a group expecting to keep moving.

Matching the school’s single-season wins mark gives the current roster a place beside the best Jacksonville baseball teams in memory. For players, coaches, alumni and longtime supporters, that kind of record carries weight because it offers a clear measure of where this season stands in the program’s history.

The timing also matters. The Illinois High School Association’s 2025-26 baseball state series put regional title games in late May, with sectional finals set for June 6 and super-sectionals for June 8, so Jacksonville’s win came in the opening stretch of a postseason that can still lead all the way to the state final on June 12. In Class 3A, where Jacksonville is competing this spring, each step gets harder, which makes the Crimsons’ consistency over the last month especially important.

For Jacksonville families and Morgan County supporters, the run has created the kind of spring baseball momentum that pulls students, parents and alumni into the same conversation. A regional title shot gives the school another chance to celebrate a team that has won often enough to rewrite the record book and build a season that will be remembered long after the bracket is finished.