Play all 7: Daniel Kelly’s speech helps spark Newman to regional title after 8-run rally

MOLINE — Play all seven innings.

That was Newman senior catcher Daniel Kelly’s underlying message to his team after it gave up four runs in the top of the sixth inning and trailed Alleman by five runs.

The rallying cry was effective.

The Comets went on to score eight times in the bottom of the frame and held on to beat the Pioneers 10-7 in the Class 2A Alleman Regional final.

It was the fifth straight regional plaque for the Comets.

“Daniel Kelly comes in the dugout and says, ‘we play all seven,’” Newman’s Chase Decker said. “We knew that you can’t just stop at five. When you’ve got kids in the dugout that are on people’s backs, picking each other up, it’s just so big for the team.”

The Comets advance to face Marengo in a Class 2A Mendota Sectional semifinal at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday

Kelly said his team needed more energy after letting a 2-1 lead slip away. Alleman starting pitcher Truman Marner had retired eight straight Comets before Newman rallied.

“We’d kind of been playing flat since the first inning,” Kelly said. “I told them that we needed more energy and that there’s no pressure on us. We’ve been here before the last five years.”

The confident Comets (24-7-1) have experience being down but not out over the course of winning four straight sectional titles and taking home state trophies the last two years. Alleman (27-10) had won nine of its last 10 games and already tripled the number of games it won last season.

“It was all their pressure to hold us to not score, and they couldn’t do it,” Kelly said. “We have a lot of experience here, and I think that’s what really helps us.”

Decker led off the rally with a single as Newman batted around in the sixth.

Decker hit a two-run double and Kelly ripped an RBI double off the fence in the big inning. Kelly also hit a two-run triple in the first inning to make it 2-1, had a diving catch and threw out a runner at second in the win.

Decker finished 4 for 4 with two RBIs and Kelly was 3 for 4 with three RBIs.

Ashton Miner’s RBI single tied the game at 7 and Decker’s two-run double made it 9-7 before Kelly knocked in another run. Garet Wolfe and Liam Nicklaus also had RBIs.

Garret Matznick pitched a scoreless seventh after he was charged with three runs in the sixth, including a two-run home run on his first pitch to Alleman’s Jackson Smith.

Newman’s hard contact to answer Alleman’s outburst was welcomed as the Comets hope to keep that trend going.

“I think we were hitting the ball in the air a little too much,” Kelly said. “We hit a lot more ground balls, a lot more line drives and that’s what we needed.”

Decker said the team battled back.

“Newman baseball never gives up,” he said. “We always battle through all seven, and that’s what we did coming into that [sixth] inning.”

Newman junior starting pitcher Drake Cole said it was the biggest game he’s pitched in after stepping into the rotation this season.

He said the energy in the dugout was big in the comeback inning.

Cole went five innings, allowing five earned runs on five hits and four walks with two strikeouts.

After the dust settled, both teams combined for 12 runs in the sixth frame.

“That sixth inning was crazy, huh?,” Newman coach Kenny Koerner said. “It’s a new group. Really proud of how they battled and how they came back.”

After the graduation of Los Angeles Dodgers draft pick Brendan Tunink, there isn’t a clear lockdown pitcher to close games like there was last season.

But the seniors, like Decker and Kelly, helped continue the streak of regional titles.

“Daniel groups everybody up and has a pretty passionate speech that he gives,” Koerner said. “[He] tells everybody that it’s not over, you’ve got to play every pitch. He’s been here before, he knows it, and a lot of credit to senior leadership there.”