JEFFERSON — Andrew Saksa has already laid claim to being one of the Northeastern Conference’s or Ashtabula County’s top players.

He did nothing to hurt his reputation on Friday as he and the top-seeded Jefferson Falcons beat the Conneaut Spartans, 7-0, in a Division II sectional championship at Cotton Field at the Havens Complex.

The tall, lanky right-hander went the distance and fashioned a three-hit, seven-strikeout gem against the up-and-coming Spartans.

Conneaut’s record is not indicative of what Joel Taylor’s team (6-14, 1-10 NEC) is all about, but Saksa, along with some good defense, which included a double-play liner back to the pitcher, and timely hitting helped advance Jefferson to the district semifinals, where it will meet Lake Catholic, a 7-6 winner over University School on Friday, on Thursday back at Cotton Field.

Saksa was pleased with his performance, although he got off to a rather rocky start, as Conneaut got the first two batters on base in the second inning. But he settled down and retired 18 out of the next 19 batters to notch the win.

“I feel awesome,” Saksa said. “I kind of got the butterflies coming into this game, but I tried to treat this game just like any other game.”

Saksa can just dream about any postseason awards right now, but he definitely feels he’s been more on his game this year than in the past.

“It would mean a lot to me, because my past few seasons haven’t been quite where I wanted them, but this a lot closer to where I want to be,” Saksa said. “There’s Fields (Harvey’s Chris) and Ryan Morford from our team that would be just as deserving, but I definitely would be interested.”

Jefferson (20-4, 10-1 NEC) struck early in the second inning as Anthony Paneto led off with a single and moved to second on the first of two bunt singles by Zak Blair. Zak Graf walked to fill the bases. One out later, Kyle Gilchrist got the Falcons on the board with a sacrifice fly to plate Paneto. Then, Morford blasted the first of his two doubles to score Blair and Graf.

That’s all Saksa would need, but just to besure, the Falcons scored three more in the fourth inning as Morford doubled and Graf, Saksa and Blair each singled to stretch the score to 6-0. The Falcons added the final touch in the fifth as Saksa singled home Morford with the bases loaded.

Winning never gets old hat for Falcons coach Scott Barber. He knows this is only a stepping stone to something bigger.

“Once again, defense and us being able to throw strikes was the difference,” Barber said. “They earned the baserunners they got in the first couple innings, but we didn’t walk anyone to compound the situation and Andrew (Saksa) was able to work out of it. I don’t know if Andy had the jitters out there tonight, but I’m just glad he was able to regroup.”

Barber likes this team for many reasons and doesn’t spare his feelings when he discusses them.

“This team is very coachable,” he said. “But we’re very happy with everyone’s approach. We may not get the end result that we want every time, but they want to know what to do in all situations and are always looking for ways to make themselves better players.”

Spartan coach Joel Taylor kept looking at the glass as half full. His team, as young as it was, improved by leaps and bounds from the early part of the season.