Sports 8 July 2020

Chickasaws sweep NEIC doubleheaders

The path has been paved and the brackets are set.
Postseason baseball is just around the bend for the New Hampton Chickasaws.
Four regular season games remain and then the fun really starts.
Cory McDonald is in his 12th year at the helm of the Chickasaw program and is aiming for yet another season of winning baseball. New Hampton cracked the state tournament field for the first time in school history last summer and is obviously striving to once again grace the spacious minor league ball diamond near downtown Des Moines.
“We have two simple goals. They are so straight forward - winning record for the 12th year in a row and district champions, to have one shot at state,” said McDonald. “I am confident that if we’re able to accomplish those two goals – everyone’s going to forget about the start to the season.”
That rough patch to begin (2-6) the abbreviated 2020 campaign has forced New Hampton to face an uphill battle in retaining first place in the Northeast Iowa Conference. Six conference titles in a row may be a long shot for New Hampton at this point in the season.
The Chickasaws have bigger fish to fry - mainly getting back to Principal Park.
“We’re not interested. We’re not even thinking about the conference title. That’s a moot point for us,” McDonald added. “Our goal is to play in Principal Park.”
The Chickasaws (8-7, 6-4) swept Crestwood and Waukon last week and are currently looking up at first-place Waverley-Shell Rock and second-place Decorah in the league standings. The Vikings swept the Chickasaws earlier in the season behind two superb pitching performances. New Hampton hosts WSR tonight (Tuesday) in a key NEIC tilt.
“I think that people realize that the record that we had – the start that we had – was all against competition that was good,” said McDonald.
Chickasaw baseball fans received really good news this week when the district pairings were released by the state. Despite its sub-.500 record at the time, New Hampton received the No. 1 seed in Class 2A, District 6.
— For more on this story, see the July 7 Tribune

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