Former Chickasaw hoping for one final fling on the diamond

Central College senior Noah Stochl didn’t want to go through another 2016 on the baseball field.  For a guy used to winning baseball games, last spring was one season-long nightmare.  A year ago, the Dutch went 10-30 and missed out on qualifying for the Iowa Conference baseball tournament; in fact, Central finished dead last in the league standings.  “That was tough, that was a grind,” said Stochl, the 2013 New Hampton High School graduate who had never experienced a losing season, going all the way back to his third-grade youth baseball days. “It honestly kind of just snowballed, and I don’t think any of us wanted to go through that again.”  And while Central has struggled at times this year — the Dutch are currently on a four-game losing skid — it has bounced back somewhat.  Central will take an 18-19 record into this weekend’s regular season finale at last-place Simpson and has already wrapped up a spot in the Iowa Conference tournament that will be played in Cedar Rapids May 11-13.  And Stochl has been a big part of the turnaround.  More on the story may be found in the May 5 Tribune.