T-town Knocks Off Newton for Seventh Straight Sectional Title

Teutopolis High School brought some thunder to Saturday's Class 2A sectional final, racking up three home runs and a total of seven extra-base hits in a 6-3 victory over Newton at Wooden Shoe Field.

That barrage of slugging and a solid pitching effort from Devin Smith were enough to propel the Wooden Shoes to their seventh consecutive super-sectional appearance; in a game heard on 979 XFM and 979xfm.com, the Shoes led 6-1 after four innings and then held on despite watching the Eagles score twice in the top of the seventh and get the tying run to the plate.

Smith, who'd allowed just two baserunners prior to the final frame, struck out Connor Bierman to end things with runners on the corners. It was the seniors eighth strikeout of the game against three walks and three hits. He retired the first 10 Newton hitters he faced before Mitch Bierman's one-out triple in the fourth. Bierman scored when the following hitter, Brock Mammoser, lifted a sacrifice fly to right field, but at that point the Shoes had already tallied four runs.

The first of those runs came quickly for T-town (26-9) when Smith ripped an 0-1 pitch from Mammoser, Newton's starter, over the left field fence to lead off the home half of the first inning. In the second inning, Cody Jansen drilled a one-out double over the head of Eagles center fielder Nate Meinhart and, after advancing on a wild pitch, scored when Lane Belleville rapped an RBI grounder to second.

T-town doubled its lead in the bottom of the third when Smith worked a leadoff walk and was chased home by Brock Bueker's long homer to nearly straightaway center field. Jansen led off the fourth with another round-tripper down the left field line and Carson Hartke scored the Shoes' final run later that inning when he lined a one-out double to the right-center field gap and came home on Jacob Roepke's RBI single.

Mammoser pitched into the sixth for Newton (19-10) on the same day the finals of the IHSA state track meet were taking place in Charleston; the senior had qualified for those finals in the pole vault. He struck out four and walked just one in his five innings, surrendering six runs on nine hits. Mitch Jansen came on in the sixth and worked around a Hartke double -- the T-town junior's third extra-base hit of the day -- for an inning of scoreless relief.

For the Eagles, it was their first sectional appearance since 2007. A sectional championship would've been their first since 2001, when they won a Class A state title in the old two-class system.

Teutopolis, which was appearing in its ninth straight sectional, advances to face Murphysboro Monday evening at GCS Park in Sauget; the Red Devils dispatched Carmi-White County in the title game of the Du Quoin Sectional. First pitch is scheduled for 5 p.m. and the winner advances to the state tournament next weekend in Peoria. If the Shoes should happen to win Monday, it'd be their fifth trip to state in the last seven years.