Baseball: Leaders emerging for Chiefs after early season adversity

MANDAN, N.D. — Throughout the course of a season, every team is going to face adversity. For the Mandan Chiefs, this year has been full of ups and downs.

With players battling injuries and illness throughout this legion season, the Chiefs have had to adjust. Working with several different lineups that included younger players finding more time in the lineup and on the diamond. However, as postseason play begins next week, Mandan is looking at the positives from the challenges they’ve faced this season.

“I think the biggest thing for us is it’s allowed kids to develop into leadership roles that maybe we weren’t expecting next year or in the future,” head coach Jake Kincaid says. “So, I think that’s kind of been the exciting part, is they’ve kind of accelerated their leadership a little bit and put a little more on their plate than I think they were expecting. For the program and team as a whole, I think it’s been a really positive for us.”

In addition to the athletes taking on new roles and growing as leaders, a key for this Chiefs team is their chemistry. The players feel that the bond this season’s squad shares is unlike any other Mandan group to don the green and yellow.

“I think it started in school ball,” McCoy Keller says. “We all kind of played together my senior year and it’s kind of the same team. It carried over into the Chiefs and then last year they had the same team and just kind of been the same group for a couple of years now. These guys are like my brothers, so it’s been a blast being work with them.”

“It’s great,” Tukker Horner adds. “I mean, the team chemistry is just unreal this year. We’re ready to go. It’s been great every year, but this year there’s something special there. We do everything like off the field. We go golf. We do anything we can. We go fish. Anything like that.”

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