New Hampton remains perfect in league games

Asked how many mantras his team has, and New Hampton baseball coach Cory McDonald couldn’t help but laugh.“A lot,” the coach said, “but you know, we have those mantras and those sayings for a reason.”Take “next play,” for example.Never was it more important than early in Wednesday’s Northeast Iowa Conference game with Oelwein, when the Chickasaws learned that “next play” can happen on the same play.After a ball got by the New Hampton infield, Oelwein rolled the dice and sent Steven Nicolay home, but there was leftfielder Mason Cleveland, charging in to back up the play.The sophomore picked up the ball and gunned it to the plate, where catcher Noah Fye put the tag on to keep the game scoreless in a contest that New Hampton would win 10-0.But make no mistake about it, that was a big play.“My job there is to back it up and that’s why you do it,” Cleveland said. “I saw him going and I came up throwing. It felt pretty good when I let it go.”
The rest of the story may be found in the June 23 Tribune.