Diamond Jacks’ Soren Gregor leads off first after his second hit of the game.
By Rich Bevensee
It’s hard to tell just by looking at Rob Sikorski when he’s standing on the mound, but he is actually thrilled to be back in a uniform playing baseball.
After missing a solid portion of his high school season and all of summer baseball due to mono, it’s easy to understand why Sikorski feels that way.
He’s also a young man with aspirations of playing college baseball, so that feeds into his excitement as well. He’s out to prove he’s still a valuable commodity, and on Sunday at Diamond Nation in Flemington, he did just that.
Sikorski, a 5-11, 160-pound left-hander, allowed two hits over five shutout innings in helping Diamond Jacks Super 17U 2025 claim a 10-0 victory over Baseball Factory 1 in the Super 17 Fall Invitational Powered by Victus.
“This is my thing, this is what I do – play baseball,” Sikorski said. “So I’m trying to gauge what I can still do, and hopefully I can keep playing.”
The Diamond Jacks completed a 3-0 pool play weekend in this non-playoff showcase event. On Saturday, they earned a doubleheader sweep by beating Clubhouse 17/18U, 5-1, and Body Armor 2025s, 2-1.
Baseball Factory, which draws its players from several states, fell to 0-3. On Saturday it lost to the Body Armor Titans, 8-0, and to Clubhouse 11-9.
Sikorski, a senior at Immaculata, said contracting mono forced him to miss about a month of playing time in school, or about three or four scheduled starts. He made two starts before the Spartans wrapped up their season, but admitted he wasn’t the same when he returned to the lineup.
“I couldn’t eat and I lost a bunch of weight. And I was already a skinny kid,” said Sikorski, who noted he dropped 25 pounds. “And I hated watching. That was the hardest part.”
Sikorski threw just 21.1 innings last spring and pitched to a 6.23 ERA with 16 strikeouts and 10 walks.
He made the decision to forgo summer baseball with the Diamond Jacks to get his weight and conditioning back to where it was before mono sidelined his season.
“It was very frustrating,” Sikorski said. “I wanted to play and my recruiting was really set back by that. I used the whole summer season for getting back – getting my weight back, getting my strength back.”
Aside from a post-game sore arm in his second fall start, Sikorski seems to be all the way back. He allowed two hits and two walks and struck out four in his five shutout innings of work.
Not one baserunner reached second base while Sikorski was on the bump.
Jason Labrador slaps a base hit to fuel the Diamond Jacks’ seven-run seventh inning.
“I was throwing mainly my four-seam and I started mixing in a sinker, change and curve,” Sikorski said. “When I started feeling comfortable with the four-seam I started mixing in a two-seam and the other pitches. The velo was there, movement was there, so I got a lot of swings and misses. My pitches were moving really well. I was definitely catching them off guard.
“It felt good to just go out there and throw, get back to it and join my team again. This was definitely one of my better outings.”
Anthony DeNora, a senior right-hander from Gov. Livingston, capped the Diamond Jacks’ shutout with two innings in which he allowed no hits and two walks while striking out three.
Soren Gregor, the Diamond Jacks’ No. 10 hitter, fueled the offense by going 2-for-3 with a hit by pitch and an RBI.
“I’m more of a pitcher so naturally I’m at the bottom of the order,” said Gregor, a senior at Hunterdon Central. “Honestly the guy was throwing 75 percent curveballs so I was sitting curveball the whole time, and just grip it and rip it. I really have nothing to lose or anything. There’s no pressure, that’s the mentality, and with that mentality the better I do.”
Jake Yang, the team’s cleanup hitter, went 3-for-3 with a double, a walk and two RBI. He and Gregor were the only Diamond Jacks with multiple hits.
Yang set up the team’s three-run rally in the top of the second by leading off with a double to left. Two batters later J.R. Rosado, a senior at Bridgewater-Raritan, doubled into the left field corner to score Yang. Rosado later scored on a wild pitch and Gregor beat out a two-out infield single to drive in another run.
The score remained 3-0 until the seventh mainly because Baseball Factory righty Dan Works was able to shimmy out of jams in the third and fifth innings.
In the third the Diamond Jacks had runners on first and second with no outs and Works got two strikeouts and a fielder’s choice. In the fifth the Diamond Jacks had runners on second and third with one out and Works induced an infield liner and a comebacker to escape from that jam.
In the top of the seventh, the Diamond Jacks salted the game away with a seven-run rally. Gregor and leadoff hitter Jayden Capindica scored on a bases-loaded throwing error. Yang stroked a two-run single, Rosado added a fielder’s choice RBI, and DeNora slapped a two-run single into center.
For Baseball Factory, Works threw five innings and allowed three runs on five hits and six walks with nine strikeouts. Giovanni Perez pitched an inning and permitted five runs on two hits and two walks. Reed Smith came on in relief in the seventh and yielded two runs on two hits and one walk with one strikeout.