Gavin Jacobsen has joined the St. Cloud Rox of the Northwoods League for the remainder of the season. The Northwoods League is a collegiate summer baseball wooden bat league.
Position players in the league must have NCAA eligibility remaining in order to participate. Graduated senior pitchers may also participate.
Jacobsen is a Jackson County Central graduate who played for the Huskies and the Jackson American Legion Post 130 team. He’s played two seasons at NCAA Division III Bethany Lutheran College and is in his fourth season with the Jackson Bulls amateur baseball team.
Bulls Manager Scott Bahr believes Jacobsen is the first local product to play in the Northwoods League, which has 24 teams in seven states (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and North Dakota) and one Canadian province (Ontario).
“We’ve had guys that have played in college leagues across the country, but I think he’s the first to play in the Northwoods League, which is one of the premiere leagues in the country,” Bahr said.
Jacobsen has put in the work as he’s advanced through the ranks to earn the opportunity to play on a high level.
“Anybody who has been around the JCC Huskies, Jackson Legion or Jackson Bulls has seen how hard Gavin works,” Bahr commented “His goals were to get more velocity and more control every year. Now it seems like almost every week he grabs the ball, goes out there and pitches and does something a little better, whether it’s his breaking pitch getting a little sharper and now he’s working on a changeup where he’s been able to throw it for a strike.
“And his durability is crazy good right now. He’ll go out there and stay there until he has to come off. His number of strikeouts is insane.”
Jacobsen set a Jackson Bulls’ record for strikeouts with 18 at Lakefield on June 11 and also recorded 14 at Pipestone on June 25.
There were mixed emotions for Gavin when he was presented with the opportunity to play in the Northwoods League. The townball season is in its stretch run with the playoffs starting in a little over two weeks.
“He said he had mixed emotions,” said Bahr. “He wanted to be here, where he gets to play baseball with his dad (Blaise) and hopefully battle for an opportunity to go to state with him and he said, ‘what do I do Scotty?’ and I said you don’t have a choice. What an honor and what an opportunity.”
Players in the Northwoods League come from all levels of college baseball from around the country.
Jacobsen is joining a staff that has pitchers from Division I programs Minnesota, St Thomas, Creighton, Cal State-Fullerton, Georgia, Indiana and New Jersey Institute of Technology. The Rox also have position players from Division I schools Omaha, Kansas, Brigham Young, Utah, Cal-Riverside and Kent State.
Jacobsen was a first-team selection on the all-Upper Midwest Athletic Conference team with BLC this spring.
He appeared in 11 games, starting 10 and posted a 1-2 record with a 4.11 earned run average. In 51 innings he allowed 34 runs (25 earned) on 43 hits, walked 24, hit eight and struck out 85.
Jacobsen struck out 15.0 batters per nine innings, which was first in the country among NCAA Division III pitchers. Second place was 14.46 batters.
“It will be fun for him and for us here to watch him and cheer him on from where we’re at,” said Bahr. “We’ll battle, just like we always do and hopefully he can join us later in the year.”
The Rox, who play their home games at Joe Faber Field, have a 21-12 record and are in second place in the Great Plains West Division, four games behind the Willmar Stingers.
St. Cloud wraps up a two-game series at Waterloo tonight (Monday) and then play a July 4 matinee in Duluth Tuesday.
The Rox then host the Huskies Wednesday and Thursday nights. Blaise and Dustene Jacobsen plan to attend those games.
St. Cloud has completed its games in Mankato for the regular season.
The Rox host the MoonDogs for two on July 13-14. One of Gavin’s coaches at Bethany, Danny Kneeland is Mankato’s manager. Kneeland is a Windom graduate and one-time JCC teacher.
St. Cloud does play two games in Willmar, July 10 and July 24.