Waukon baseball takes #3 New Hampton to the edge in 2-1 season-ending loss in district semifinals

The Waukon baseball team had its season ended with a loss at third-rated New Hampton in the semifinal round of Class 2A District Tournament play Tuesday, July 12, but somehow that 2-1 shortcoming certainly doesn’t feel like a defeat. Having played the highly-regarded Chickasaws on three occasions earlier in the regular season during Northeast Iowa Conference play, the Tribe had yet to last more than six innings or score a run against the back-to-back Northeast Iowa Conference champions, actually having been outscored by a 40-0 margin in those three previous contests - including losses of 16-0 in four innings and 14-0 in five innings exactly one week earlier.

“I can’t describe how proud I was of the performance that the guys gave,” Waukon baseball coach Jerry Keenan said. “New Hampton is a tremendous team, the best that we have faced all season. They have won the Northeast Iowa Conference title two years in a row now and just beat the number-two team in Class 2A (Clear Lake) last week. We didn’t have much luck with them in the regular season, but our guys came to play and were ready for the challenge.”

No other players proved to be up to that challenge more than the senior pair of pitcher Haden Hammel, who limited the Chickasaws to just three hits and two earned runs, and center fielder Peyton Hesse, who reached base in all four of his turns at the plate, including a double, a single, a triple and being hit by a pitch - ultimately scoring the Tribe’s only run and being in position to add even more in a nail-biting top of the seventh inning. Hammel and his defensive counterparts kept any Chickasaw from advancing beyond second base through four complete innings, with Hammel striking out six batters and giving up five walks, two of which finally stung in the fifth inning for the game’s first run.

“Haden Hammel was one of the top pitchers in northeast Iowa down the stretch,” Coach Keenan said. “New Hampton is batting .360 as a team and he held them to three singles on the night. They average 10.5 runs a game and he held them to two very hard-earned runs. His performance was outstanding and the defense behind him was equally as brilliant. Our defense improved throughout the season and was tremendous in the postseason.”

The Indians were limited to just four hits themselves in the ballgame, with Hesse managing three of those. He started his tirade with a one-out double in the first inning, but was then tagged out on an ensuing fielder’s choice play trying to advance to third on a ground ball to the shortstop. His third-inning single followed the only other “non-Hesse” hit of the ballgame, a one out-single by sophomore shortstop Mitchell Snitker, but that two-hit inning for the Tribe still couldn’t penetrate the scoreboard.

After escaping unscathed from three walks issued through the first two innings and giving up his first hit in the third, Hammel set the Chickasaws down in order in the fourth, but had another two-walk frame result in the game’s first run, as a wild pitch advanced that first base on balls benefactor to third base, from where he scored easily on a sacrifice fly to give New Hampton a 1-0 lead through five complete frames.

Hesse directed the Indians’ immediate response to that initial Chickasaw tally, ripping a triple to right center field to lead off the top of the sixth inning and blazing home on a ground-out by junior right fielder Tanner Mathis to knot the score at 1-1.

The host Chickasaws finally strung two hits together themselves for the first time in the ballgame in their half of the sixth inning, getting some help from the Indian defense to make those safeties pay off. A one-out single by senior third baseman Trevor Ambrose was helped along when Hammel’s pick-off throw to first base got away from sophomore first baseman Colin Waters, allowing Ambrose to move up to second base. Ambrose proceeded to steal third base, and then pushed New Hampton back in front on a single by fellow senior, shortstop Alex Troyna, for a 2-1 Chickasaw advantage heading into the game’s final frame.

Although the Indians’ final at-bats didn’t start off all that well, with three consecutive strike-outs, the second of those resulted in a dropped third strike in junior left fielder Tyler O’Neill’s at-bat that allowed him to reach base. Clinging to their final out, the Indians’ hopes were pushed to the edge as Snitker then drew a walk and Hesse was hit by a pitch to load the bases with Indians. One final strike-out, however, left the bases full of Indians and the Tribe’s hopes of further postseason advancement empty with a 2-1 loss.

The Indians got all four of their hits off Chickasaw junior Keegan Tenge, who also allowed two walks and the Tribe’s lone run while striking out six batters in six innings. Fellow junior Ryan Gorman came on for the game’s final frame to give up no hits but walk one batter, hit another and get the rare statistic of striking out four batters in one inning due to that dropped third strike in the seventh.

The semifinal district tournament loss ended the Indians’ season at a 7-22 overall record that includes a seventh-place 2-16 Northeast Iowa Conference finish. New Hampton went on to defeat North Fayette Valley by a 3-0 final result Saturday, July 16 in District 6 championship play to earn advancement to the Tuesday, July 19 Substate 3 championship game to be played at Waverly against Denver for the right to advance to the Class 2A State Tournament in Des Moines.

“I told the team after the game to keep their heads up,” Coach Keenan summarized. “One of our goals is, and always will be, to be playing our best baseball at the end of the season. With the 1-0 victory over Sumner-Fredericksburg and the 2-1 loss to New Hampton, we definitely were doing just that. A couple of great high school baseball games that were simply fun to watch. It is never easy to end the season, but I am so proud of the effort that this team gave and the character that they showed.”