Congratulations to Jeff Rapp for earning Coach of the Year honors! And to his support staff...including EMBs own Mike Edmonds congrats as well. Hempstead and our other area high schools are very lucky to have such tremendous coaches. Love seeing baseball done here The Right Way. Telegraph Herald High School Baseball Coach of the Year: Jeff Rapp (Dubuque Hempstead) Hempstead develops chemistry during special season. Jeff Rapp expected the Dubuque Hempstead baseball team to be pretty good long before many outside the program took notice. But what transpired from late May to early August made this season even more enjoyable than Rapp could have imagined. The Mustangs, who went 15-19 last season and lost in the opening round of the substate tournament, made the unusual jump from unranked in the Iowa Class 4A preseason poll to No. 1 in the first regular-season poll, and they stayed on that perch the rest of the way. Hempstead started the season with 19 straight victories en route to a school-record 37 wins and ended it at Principal Park in the state semifinals. No team in Iowa, regardless of class, won as many games as the Mustangs did this season. For the turnaround season, Rapp has been selected the Telegraph Herald Baseball Coach of the Year. He shares the honor with assistants Nick Maneman and Mike Edmonds. I had high hopes and high expectations for the season, but I certainly didnt expect wed have the kind of year we had, said Rapp, who went 37-6 in his fourth season as head coach at his alma mater after serving the previous 20 years in other roles in the program. The biggest reason for it was the group of seniors we had, the way every player accepted his role and the way we played as a team. If you looked at our team, we werent a real imposing group and we didnt have a bunch of superstars. But, up and down the lineup, each and every player had a moment where he stepped up and led the team. They all came through for their teammates at least a couple of times during the season, and thats how you have the kind of season we had. The Mustangs enjoyed one of the deeper benches in the Mississippi Valley Conference this season. And the roster included seven pitchers who would have been the ace of many MVC squads. Our depth was such an important part of our success, Rapp said. The guys who were starting knew that their position wasnt wrapped up. They knew they were going to be pushed every day in practice and they had to come through or the next guy would step up and take their spot. The seniors did such a great job of taking care of the dugout and the behavior in practice, so all I had to worry about was the baseball side of it. It made my job a lot easier. I certainly hope that, at some point in my career, I can have another year like this, not only from a wins and losses standpoint, but from the way this group came together as a family. There werent any cliques. All of the players got along, and they spent time together doing non-baseball activities that only strengthened the chemistry on the diamond. That was evident by the way the team spent its final days together in Des Moines earlier this month. They played cards for hours and shared stories of the season. Rapp also introduced a new wrinkle into the Mustangs routine to build chemistry. He suggested the players try weekly yoga sessions. At first, we looked at him and said, Are you serious? senior catcher Brady Breitbach said. But, after we started doing it, we realized it was fun and we saw the results from it. It helped you be more flexible and helped you focus. And it became a great way to bond as a team. What started as an experiment became a superstition. During the season, you get a little sore or a little tight, and yoga definitely helped loosen you up, first baseman David Fitzgerald. He asked us to try it once, and we fell in love with it. You finish with like a 20 minute nap, which was awesome. A couple of times, though, we had to wake up Coach Rapp because hed be snoring too loud. The Mustangs played loose and confident. They were the last Class 4A unbeaten team in the state, and it took extra innings for Dubuque Senior to deny Hempstead its 20th straight win. If you would have asked me before the season if we were going to win our first 19 games, I would have told you there was no possible way, second baseman Mitch Crimmins said. I dont really know how to explain it, other than to say we just went out, played our game and won games. It was actually kind of surreal as it was happening. Rapp leaned on his assistants throughout the season. Edmonds worked primarily with the pitchers, while Maneman served as first base coach and worked with Rapp on offensive strategy. The head coachs name is on the wins and losses, Rapp said. But this really was a team effort between the three of us. There wasnt a decision made that didnt go through both of them. The teamwork among the coaches rubbed off on the players. Theyre all great coaches, senior Chris Tomkins said. They had confidence in us and were always willing to put in the extra time to help us get prepared, mentally and physically. We definitely couldnt have done it without them.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 02:00:40 +0000