Morgan County teams split postseason games as Jacksonville advances

Jacksonville kept its season alive and made history at the same time, beating Mattoon 6-2 to reach the Mattoon Regional championship game and tie the program’s single-season record for wins. Routt Catholic backed that up for Morgan County with a 12-2 win over Rushville-Industry in Liberty, giving local baseball fans two results that mattered as the postseason bracket tightened fast.

Jacksonville’s victory came Wednesday, May 27, on the east side of the state, and the 6-2 finish was enough to push the Crimsons into the regional final. The win carried extra weight because it matched the program’s single-season record, a mark that underscored how deep this Jacksonville team has gone as the IHSA tournament moved into its deciding rounds.

Routt Catholic’s result was just as decisive. The Crusaders beat Rushville-Industry 12-2 in an IHSA postseason baseball game at Liberty, with local radio coverage in the WLDS and WEAI sports window beginning around 4:15 p.m. That made the game part of the same fast-moving scoreboard cycle that kept west-central Illinois listeners checking results as soon as the first round of updates hit.

The broader May 28 scoreboard showed how quickly the playoff board was changing around Morgan County. West Central was eliminated by Brown County, Greenfield-Northwestern lost 13-5 at Morrisonville, North Mac fell 4-3 to Litchfield, New Berlin was edged by Rochester 3-2, and Calhoun dropped a 1-0 home game against Okawville. Pleasant Plains beat Auburn 7-1, and Porta/AC shut out Beardstown 10-0, reinforcing how narrow the margin had become for teams still chasing a championship run.

For Morgan County, the night left Jacksonville one win deeper into the Mattoon Regional and Routt Catholic still alive in postseason play, while much of the surrounding bracket was trimmed away in one late-May sweep of results.