Having covered high school baseball for several years, I’ve learned one hard and fast rule while interviewing a coach after a championship — don’t stand too close, because that cooler of ice water is probably going to get dumped on him soon.

I usually stand at an angle where I can see it coming and then I can bale at the last second, leaving just the coach as the recipient of that cold blast. But I let my guard down a little last night and paid the price.

While interviewing Prep coach Pat Mooney after his team’s division-clinching win at the American Legion state tourney, two players charged at us from behind and got us both pretty good. I caught the uniform numbers of the two perpetrators and have filed them away under “get even with these two someday” — maybe I can return the favor in the middle of a class when they least expect it.