SVM Baseball Player of the Year: Garret Matznick is catalyst for Comets

Garret Matznick was the engine that drove the Newman Comets this spring.

The junior shortstop was the catalyst for the Comets’ third consecutive run to the state finals from his leadoff spot in the batting order and his closer role on the mound.

“As he went, we went. He just creates so much havoc both offensively and defensively for the other team,” Newman coach Kenny Koerner said. “He puts so much pressure on the defense because he’s so fast. And his instincts on the basepaths are so good that whenever he’s on, we feel like he’s going to score and we’re going to win. He’s the game-changer for us.”

Matznick’s biggest asset was his ability to get on base, then turn that into extra bases. He struck out only nine times in 118 at-bats, and drew 33 walks to go with 45 hits – including 13 doubles and a triple.

And for the second time this school year, the IHSBCA All-Stater entered the NCCHS record books. After dishing 307 assists during basketball season, Matznick stole 49 bases this spring – 40 more than his closest teammate.

“If he had a good start, we felt like we were going to have a good game,” senior catcher and co-captain Daniel Kelly said. “Usually when he starts us off and he gets on base, most of the time we score, and getting momentum like that is huge. In our leadoff spot, that’s his job, and he did a really good job of that this year. He made us go, and we fed off that energy.”

Matznick was only one off the school record with 51 runs scored and those 33 walks – behind only 2024 MLB Draft pick Brendan Tunink. He drove in 25 runs from his leadoff spot and batted .381 – including .459 with runners in scoring position – with a .529 on-base percentage and a .508 slugging percentage.

Setting the tone at the top of the order for a fourth-place state finisher has earned Matznick the title of 2025 Sauk Valley Media Baseball Player of the Year.

“I love being that guy for the team, but my teammates were a big part of it too,” Matznick said. “If I can get on base right away, start us off and see a couple of pitches and then get on base, that gets us going. And if we get even one run early in the first inning, it’s huge to get that lead – and you may not realize it at the time, but that can mean a lot throughout the rest of the game.

“But it really took the pressure off knowing I had good hitters behind me. I knew that if I didn’t get on, the guys following me would pick me up – and if I did get on, they’d find a way to get me in.”

That attitude permeates the Newman team through this current unprecedented run of success: five straight sectional titles, a third-place finish in Class 1A in 2023, and back-to-back fourth-place finishes in 2A. The Comets are 95-32-2 over the last four years – the best stretch in program history – including a 28-9-1 record this year that set the record for wins in a season.

And that was after the loss of Tunink, arguably the greatest player in program history who was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the eighth round of last year’s amateur draft.

“I think coming in, we didn’t really know what to expect this season,” Matznick said. “We had a good group of kids coming back, but losing Brendan was huge, obviously. But we had some seniors step up this year that really performed, especially in the playoffs.”

An epic sixth-inning comeback to beat Alleman in the regional final ignited the postseason surge, then the Comets gritted out a sectional semifinal win over Marengo before taking control from the start in the final against Johnsburg. They dominated the supersectional to beat Chicago Hope Academy for the third straight year.

Losses to Teutopolis and Eureka at state didn’t diminish their accomplishments.

“We knew throughout the whole year that we could make a run, especially once the postseason came and everyone was healthy,” Matznick said. “We battled injuries all season – I think at least one person was hurt and out of the lineup and some point throughout the whole year – so once the playoffs got here, and we finally were all healthy, we all got hot at the same time.”

With a formidable lineup 1 through 9 and a strong defense, the pitching staff knew there wasn’t as much pressure on them to be perfect. The run support was likely going to be there, and pitching to contact was a viable way to pick up outs.

“We have a thing in the team where if we keep the team under five runs, we’re going to win a lot of games,” Matznick said. “If we just keep them within that range and our defense plays good and doesn’t have errors, we’ll be OK with the offense that we have.”

Matznick pitched a few innings early in the year, but for the most part, the coaching staff held him out until the end of the season, then employed him as the shutdown closer when they needed to get big outs at the end of the game.

“It was awesome to have that,” Kelly said. “When Garret got on the mound, he did a really good job shutting a team’s momentum down, especially if they had a guy on base. They think they’ve got momentum going, and then Garret comes in and shuts them down and it stops all that.

“That gave us as ton of confidence, especially when we had the lead. We knew Garret was going to throw strikes, he’s going to get some strikeouts and keep hitters off-balance.”

On the mound, he had a 2.37 ERA, allowing just eight earned runs in 23 2/3 innings pitched over 11 games, with a 2-1 record and six saves, striking out 20 and walking 11. He stranded 22 runners on base and opponents batted .190 against him.

“When he came in, I felt like we were going to win,” Koerner said. “He was huge for us, not only the offense and his play at short, but boy, in pitching, he was as good as anybody we saw in the postseason being able to shut down games for us. If we could get four or five innings out of our starters, we felt really good with Matz that he’d just shut it down.”

For his part, Matznick was happy to provide stability in that role as a reliever – especially after not pitching at all for his travel ball team. He said it was a focus on the little things that helped him get big outs.

“I was just trying to go in there and throw strikes and let the defense make plays, because our defense is really good. You’ve got to make teams hit the ball to beat you, not walk them and give them free bases,” Matznick said. “I just wanted to get outs, and I was able to get some huge outs when we needed them. It was really fun.”

As one would expect with a team that finished fourth in the state, Newman had a lineup full of players with impressive stats: six starters hitting .338 or better, seven guys with more than 20 runs scored and six players with more than 20 RBIs.

But that’s not what it was about for them.

“We’re not really worried about stats. We just go out there and play because we love it,” Matznick said. “Most of us have been here for three or four years, so we’re comfortable around each other. We have lots of fun as a team, but once it’s game time, we find a way to flip the switch and come out and play as hard as we can, really lock in and do whatever it takes to get the win.”

“Our mindset was, ‘We don’t need just one person to win. If we’re going to play together as a team, we’re going to win somehow, some way,’ and I think we did that all year,” Kelly added. “Obviously not just one person could replace Brendan, but I think we did a really good job of that as a team, everyone stepping up to help fill that hole.”

Koerner said a big reason for that attitude was Matznick. In his third year as a starter, the junior shortstop was the obvious choice to step up as a leader beside Kelly, “the ultimate leader, just next level,” according to Koerner – and he was pleased with how Matznick took on that role.

“I thought Garret did a much better job this year of leading; it really showed. The strides he took from his sophomore to junior year ... he wants to win so bad, just hates to lose, and he took a big step this year in showing that,” Koerner said. “Garret was very vocal this year. If things got down early, Garret’s saying, ‘We’re not losing.’”

Next season, the Comets again bring back a bulk of their roster – seven players who saw consistent time in the lineup and their top six pitchers. Replacing three key seniors will be a challenge, but Matznick feels like the pieces are in place for his team to finish his final season with another storybook spring.

“Obviously the goal is to make it back down to state again, and hopefully we can get there. We’ve got a pretty solid core and a good group of four or five of us who will be seniors who have ended every year at state – and we’d like to keep that going,” he said. “Already making it [to state] three years in a row has just been amazing to me; four years in a row, that’s probably one of the best high-school careers you can have.”