North Fayette's Hovden celebrates 500th win

Let's just say the beginning of Dan Hovden's prep baseball coaching career wasn't exactly auspicious.

“I was 40-75 at Mount Ayr,” Hovden said. You could almost feel his head shaking back and forth through the phone and sense a smile on his face.

Since moving to North Fayette, things have been considerably brighter.

Hovden notched his 500th career victory last week. His 18th team at North Fayette went into Thursday with a 17-4 record and ranked 10th in Class 2A by the Iowa High School Baseball Coaches Association.

"It just means I'm getting old,” Hovden said. “It means I've had a lot of great assistant coaches who have put in the time and had the dedication to achieve a common goal.”

Hovden has coached three state tournament teams at North Fayette (1997, 2004, 1007), with two of them reaching the semifinals. Other than Lance Guyer, who had a good career at the University of Iowa, North Fayette hasn't had the standout, Division I or MLB draftable player. It's always a team of good all-around athletes who know how to win.

“We don't have kids that specialize up here,” said Hovden, who coaches football and basketball. “They play a lot of sports. They know how to compete. I think we've got a lot of coaches here that agree with that philosophy. We all seem to buy into it.”

This Hawks team hits .337, led by sophomore outfielder Jake Greco at .529. Catcher Tom Nesvik, one of just three seniors, is next at .397.

“It's about who gets hottest at the right time,” Hovden said. “We went to the semifinals in '97, but I thought the next two years we were better and we didn't get to the state tournament. We've had a lot of unranked teams that I thought were better than some of our ranked teams, including this one.”

But that's just the way it goes sometimes. That's one thing Hovden has learned over the years. Along with how to win consistently, of course.

“You look at Gene Schultz (from Lansing Kee) and Denny Olejcnizak up here in Decorah,” Hovden said. “It really takes a lot of time, a lot of commitment by a lot of people to have a successful program.”

Around the horn

---- According to QuikStats, Solon third baseman Tyler Smith leads the state with 46 RBIs in 23 games. The Spartans (21-2) are top-ranked in Class 2A and have a team batting average of .425.

--- A nice story is being told at Cedar Rapids Prairie, where the Hawks were 9-5 through Wednesday after years of struggling. Junior Dustin Spaw leads Prairie with a .432 batting average, four home runs and three pitching victories.