High school baseball: Jacobs' Jamie Murray is Northwest Herald Coach of the Year

The group of participants in the Class 4A baseball state tournament was like a visual test given in school asking: “Which one does not belong?”

Oak Park-River Forest (2012), Mount Carmel (2013) and Providence Catholic (2014) were the last three 4A state champions, no strangers at all with the confines of Joliet’s Silver Cross Field.

Then, there was Jacobs, a program that won its first regional title in 2013.

And yet, with the upswing under Jacobs coach Jamie Murray, whose teams have three consecutive regional championships, maybe the Golden Eagles were right where they belonged.

“We’ve said, ‘Joliet, since Day 1,' ” Murray said. “Parents laughed at it and said, ‘Come on.’ I learned from and administrator when I was teaching in Connecticut that if you set the ceiling high for your teachers where they can’t touch it, you’re going to have incredible success with your standardized tests, your environment and everything.”

That mindset is prevalent with the Golden Eagles, who became the first boys team in school history to reach a state finals. For Jacobs’ success, Murray is the Northwest Herald Baseball Coach of the Year, selected by the sports staff with input from area coaches.

Prairie Ridge’s Glen Pecoraro, Cary-Grove’s Don Sutherland and McHenry’s Brian Rockweiler received nominations from area coaches. Jacobs’ impressive postseason run pushed Murray over the top.

“Our goal was to win a state championship,” said Murray, who also was Coach of the Year in 2013. “I used the visual that three years ago, the other three [4A] programs [at state] were here [holding his left hand a foot higher than his right]. Now, here we are [and his right hand raises to meet his left].”

The Eagles (29-11) lost their semifinal game to Mount Carmel, 5-2, then could not finish the third-place game the next day because of rain and lightning. Jacobs led the game, 2-0, after two innings, but the teams are both considered third-place winners.

The affable Murray, who often seems overcaffeinated, is now 97-53 in his four seasons as Jacobs coach, a winning percentage of .647. Consider Jacobs now to be on Illinois’ baseball map.

“He does a great job of pushing his players,” center fielder-pitcher Ryan Sargent said. “He believes there’s always a guy behind you that pushes you to really play better. He gets everything out of his players. He’s going to keep it rolling next year and have a great team. We’ve established ourselves, it’s a big turning point.”

Jacobs pitcher Ryan George appreciates Murray’s approach to keeping the whole program together.

“We talk about the program now as the Hawaiian islands,” George said. “That’s what he used to say, but as one program. You come in as freshmen, but we have practice together. He doesn’t want the varsity, the JV team, the sophomore team and the freshman team to be separate, like the Hawaiian islands. He wants one group, one team.”

Murray pitched in his playing career at Bradley University. He taught and coached in his native Connecticut, then returned to the Midwest and came to Jacobs. He was an assistant coach in the program for three years before taking over.

Murray often will talk about one player, then remember something another player did, even if he did not play in that particular game. He stresses that everyone, at one point, made an impact on the season.

“This journey, they’ll have that forever,” Murray said. “No one’s going to remember if you pitched 20 innings or 40 or six. Were you a great teammate? How did you interact with those kids? That’s what they’ll remember 20 years from now.”