D-NH baseball taking pride in winning ways

   DIKE – As the Dike-New Hartford baseball team re-enters the top five in the Class 2A rankings from the Iowa High School Baseball Coaches Association, Wolverine veterans continue to prove that the team is about reloading, not rebuilding.
   “The last two years, we’ve won about 50 games,” D-NH baseball head coach Sean Leonard said of the Wolverines’ 19-win and 30-win seasons in the last two summers. “There’s a standard at this point that they want to show people that they could have the torch passed to them and do the same thing. … We rely on the seniors each year to lead us and they take pride in that.”
   Leading the way are seniors Trent Johnson and Ethan Weichers, who often find themselves in consecutive spots in the heart of D-NH’s batting order. Through the end of last week, Johnson had a .469 batting average and seven doubles, both team-leading marks, while Weichers hits .397 with four doubles, a team-best 22 RBI, and six home runs, the third-highest total of any player in Class 2A.
   “I’ve grown up with this senior class my whole life,” Johnson said. “The bond really started in third and fourth grade playing competitively with each other. But everyone’s a leader, no one’s the main leader, we all lead by example and hold our younger guys accountable for what they do.”
   Weichers added, “The seniors last year did a great job preparing us, and the new guys are stepping up and helping us win and that’s just what we do, we keep winning.”
   The full story appears in the June 29 Grundy Register. Click here for our print and online subscription options.