Chickasaws find offense

 All of a sudden, the softball is looking like a beach ball to the New Hampton softball team.The Chickasaws broke out their big bats this week as they collected 28 hits in a Northeast Iowa Conference doubleheader sweep of Waukon on Tuesday and then pounded out 18 hits in a 12-9 eight-inning loss to North Fayette Valley on Wednesday.“I’m not sure what happened,” New Hampton coach Jack Seelhammer, whose team is now 12-18 overall and finished 6-9 in the NEIC. “Maybe all we needed to do was go down to [the] Linn-Mar [tournament] and have some fun. We’re sure a lot more relaxed right now.”Start with the sweep of Waukon, which had beaten the Chickasaws 8-7 earlier in the season.In the opener, an 8-3 win, New Hampton had 15 hits, including a solo home run from Lexi Rasmussen, who finished 3-for-4.Savannah Anderson was also 3-for-4 and Karly Fitzgerald, Abby Gossling and Lauren Frerichs added two hits apiece.That was more than enough for Anderson, who got the complete game victory, giving up eight hits, walking none and striking out one.The rest of the story may be found in the July 1 Tribune.