Connor Higgins and Rhett Jacoby really don't care who they pitch against, so when coach Tony Galucy switched the two, putting Higgins up against Easton last week and bumping Jacoby back a day to have him pitch against Emmaus, it was no problem. It also worked out very well.

Higgins threw a four-hit shutout against Easton and Jacoby allowed just three hits and struck out nine against Emmaus.

Jacoby had started against Emmaus almost a month earlier, but pitched just one inning before the game was suspended by rain. When it finally resumed, Higgins was on the mound for the Trojans. This time around, Jacoby would be on the mound from start to finish against the Hornets and would walk away as the architect of a 3-1 win.

It wasn't the easiest win of Jacoby's career. He gave up a first-inning run and Emmaus' Matt Lanzone kept Parkland off the board through the first four innings. It looked like the Trojans would break through in the fourth when they put runners on second and third and had Jacoby heading to the plate. Lanzone got Jacoby to fly out, ending the threat. Jacoby may have lost that battle, but it won war.

When Jacoby headed back to the mound for the top of the fifth, he admitted that the missed opportunity spurred him on to pitch even better.

"That bothered me a little, but I just figured that since I didn't get those runs in the best thing I could do was to keep them from scoring any more runs," said Jacoby. "I figured somebody would pick me up."

Jacoby became almost machine-like on the mound over the final three innings. It appeared that his velocity actually got higher as the game went on and he was definitely moving the ball around the strike zone better than he had been throughout the early part of the game.

"I think he was a better pitcher late in the game," said Galucy. "He's a strong kid and he can throw a lot of pitches and still have plenty left in the tank."

As it would turn out, Jacoby did get another chance to help at the plate. After Parkland tied the game in the fifth, Austin Mueller led off the sixth with a base hit. Courtesy runner Colin Wadsworth came on to run for Mueller, and Jacoby sacrificed him to second. A wild pitch by Lanzone brought the infield in and Andrew Roth singled to put Parkland up 2-1. Jeff Strisovsky produced an RBI single to stretch the lead to 3-1.

The Trojans didn't let up after the win over Emmaus. They went on to win a nonconference game at North Penn, 8-3, before beating Whitehall 1-0 in extra innings on an RBI double from Chris Rabasco.

Jacoby returned to pitch against Nazareth and struck out 10 hitters in a 7-2 win that wrapped up the regular season schedule. Some teams still have some make up games to complete this week, which will determine the seeding for the conference tournament, which begins on Monday. The Trojans (15-1, 19-1) will host a quarterfinal game Monday before the tournament shifts to Hackett Park in Easton for the semifinals and finals on Wednesday and Thursday of next week.