[June 03, 2011] Cards top Tigers at home, win third straight Tweet Jun 03, 2011 (Newton Daily News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- It was far from pretty, but against a team like ADM (Adel), coach Jim Marter and the Newton baseball team are fine with winning without style points. In a game that included six errors, the Cardinals picked up a big non-conference win over the Tigers on Thursday at Woodland Park, moving its record to 4-2 on the season with its third consecutive victory. ADM jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning, but Newton battled back to eventually tie the game at four with three runs in the bottom of the fourth and three more in the sixth to pull ahead 7-4. The Cardinals survived some seventh-inning drama and held on for the win. "We didn't play our best tonight," Newton coach Jim Marter said. "The difference is, in the past it seemed like when we didn't play our best you would see us just fall apart. This team worked through those mistakes, whether it was baserunning, out in the field or bad pitches. We worked through all of them against a very good ADM team." Things certainly weren't going Newton's way early on. A Tigers' walk, two singles and a Newton error put ADM ahead 2-0 before the first out was recorded. A sacrifice fly scored a third run before freshman pitcher Derek Wrage and the Cardinal defense was able to get out of the inning in which the Tigers totaled four hits. But then Wrage settled in and was considerably better for the remainder of the game. He gave up a hit in both the second and third innings, but not another until the seventh. More importantly, he kept ADM scoreless in the same stretch. Meanwhile, after managing just a walk through the first two innings, the Newton offense woke up in the third. With one out, junior Nick VanDerWilt and senior Ira Mitchell had back-to-back singles and advanced to second and third base on a balk. One out later, senior Dustin Schelling ripped a single to left field that scored VanDerWilt. Mitchell also came around to try and score, but was thrown out with a close play at home plate. That left the score at 3-1 in favor of ADM after three innings. The Tigers added a run in the top of the fourth, but then the bottom half of Newton's lineup came answered right back with a three-run inning of its own. Sophomore Collin Reynolds got it started by reaching first base on an error with one out, stole second and then scored on a single by junior Blake Tish. After Tish was caught stealing, junior Kole Wilson singled, and then back-to-back doubles by No. 8 and 9 hitters Nick Pritchard and VanDerWilt brought in the two other runs and the game was tied at four after four innings. "That's the thing about this year's team, we have a lot of resilience," Mitchell said about Newton coming back from the early deficit. "We have a lot of guys stepping up. The bottom of our order came up big to tie it up." Wrage had a 1-2-3 top of the fifth inning, which went scoreless despite the Cardinals starting it with back-to-back singles from sophomore Taylor Field and Shelling. Newton got a big ground out to stop an ADM scoring opportunity in the top of the sixth with runners on the corners, and then took over the game in its turn to bat. Tish led off with a walk and stole second,, and then Pritchard moved to first after getting hit by a pitch. With two outs, a hit by Mitchell was misplayed by the shortstop, allowing Tish to score the Cardinals' go-ahead run at 5-4. Field came to the plate next, and hit a hard shot that was misplayed by the right fielder, allowing Mitchell and Tish to score two big insurance runs for a 7-4 lead. "The bottom of the order got us baserunners and then the top cleaned came in and cleaned it up to get those three runs," Mitchell said. "That was awesome," Schelling added about the inning. "Our dugout lit up. We were on fire from then on out. We knew we had it. We just had to go and get three more outs and put this one away." Those three outs didn't come easy. With one out, ADM got an infield single, and one out later, Dylan Nelson's double to deep right brought a run in to make the score 7-5 with the tying run at the plate. A walk put runners on first and second, but Wrage got ADM to hit a groundball to Schelling, who fired to first for the final out. After the game, Marter praised the bottom half of his lineup for coming up with the hits that got the Cardinals back into the game after the early deficit. "We had clutch hits that fourth inning that got us back into it , and it was all in the bottom of the order," he said. "Those kids stepped up and contributed. We know what we have in the top half, and all of a sudden my 7, 8 and 9 hitters are hitting balls off the fence." Also coming back from a shaky beginning was Wrage, who pitched the Cardinals' first complete game of the season. He walked four and struck out three. "He's a freshman, and I think he was a little jittery in that first inning," Marter said. "He's got good stuff. He's stepping right into the varsity rotation." "It's nice to have a freshman that can step up like that when we don't have our veteran guys pitching," Mitchell added. "We know we can count on him." The Cardinals look to keep the winning streak going over the weekend, playing a doubleheader at Pella tonight, followed by the Oskaloosa Tournament on Saturday. Newton 7, Pella 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R H E Pella 3 0 0 1 0 0 1 -- 5 9 3 Newton 0 0 1 3 0 3 x -- 7 9 3 WP: Derek Wrage LP: Chase Reece To see more of the Newton Daily News or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.newtondailynews.com/. Copyright (c) 2011, Newton Daily News, Iowa Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. 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