Harlan Community’s Soma to Continue Baseball Career at Iowa Central

Iowa Central commit Hayden Soma (4-4-25)

Harlan Community’s Soma to Continue Baseball Career at Iowa Central –

(4-4-25) – Sometimes choosing a sport to play in college can be relatively simple for a multi-sport athlete.

“Considering I’m only 5’10”, playing offensive line, it's got kind of out of the playing cards there,” said Harlan Community’s Hayden Soma, who signed his letter of intent to play baseball at Iowa Central on Friday.

For Soma, having a family connection also helped with his decision.

“My grandpa actually played for Iowa Central but that was when it was in Webster City, not in Fort Dodge, so that was a factor.”

He also was impressed with the facilities the team offers.

“The facilities in Fort Dodge are second to none for JUCO (junior college), that's for sure. They got a new turf field, a new clubhouse and everything like that. I just loved it there.”

Soma hit his first homer of his varsity career in the district championship game against Lewis Central last July. In three seasons with the Cyclones, he’s hitting .269 with a homer and 74 RBI. He also thrown out 36 of 73 (.493) of would-be base stealers in his career, including 16 of 18 a season ago.

Soma found out that Iowa Central was interested from Cyclone Head Coach Heath Stein, whose brother, Eric, is the Tritons head coach.

“I got a text from coach stein that said, ‘Hey, shoot me a text when you're free.’ and I go, ‘I'm free now, so you call her whenever.’ And he called me and had a conversation and said he wanted me to get up to Fort Dodge and just look around and when I was there I absolutely loved it.”

Soma plans to major in Ag Business and minor in Animal Science.

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