Comets enter regional final as No. 1 seed
By Kevin Cunningham
Correspondent
The Delavan-Darien High School softball team concluded its regular season with a 20-6 overall record and earned a No. 1 seed in the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association tournament. The Comets received a No. 2 seed at the end of last year’s regular season and proceeded to go on and lose in the regional finals to Beloit Turner.
This year, the team won its first two playoff games once again last week and have a regional final game against Columbus ahead of them. Columbus defeated Beloit Turner in the second round, avoiding the potential rematch with the same stakes on the line.
The game was set to take place Tuesday at Darien. If the Comets defeat Columbus, the team will go on to sectionals, where it will face the winner between McFarland and River Valley. That game will take place at 5 p.m. Thursday at McFarland.
In the first round of the playoffs, the Comets faced No. 8-seeded East Troy. Seeding-wise, the Comets had the extreme advantage, and the seeds proved to be correct.
The game lasted five innings and Delavan-Darien won 10-0. The Comets led in the first inning after scoring a run and never lost that lead.
Jennah Speth did what she could both at the plate and on the mound, knocking in six runs at the plate while allowing just one hit during her pitching duties. Speth went just 2-for-3 at the plate, but both her hits resulted in homeruns, tallying in her six RBIs.
On the mound, she struck out nine batters while walking one to go along with her one hit allowed. Two days later, the team faced Monroe in the next round and it took more time for the squad to get going.
The first three innings went scoreless before Monroe scored the first run of the game in the top of the fourth. In the bottom of the fifth, Delavan-Darien would respond with four runs of its own, and again, never relinquishing the lead.
The Comets out-hit Monroe as a team, 9-3, and Morgyn DeLara hit a homerun and picked up four RBIs in the process for the team’s 5-1 victory. Speth pitched once again, allowing three hits and a run this time around, but struck out 12 batters in the win.
Columbus, the Comets’ next opponent, finished the regular season with a 19-2 record overall. The team has won its last six games and has gone 22-1 since losing its first game of the year.
