High School Girls’ Tennis
Mt. Pleasant marched into Burlington Notre Dame’s home court and shut out the Nikes, winning their season opener, 9-0, yesterday. Lila Cook, as the #1-singles, and Lianah Phangchanthong, in the #4-singles slot, each had flawless, 8-0, singles matches. The Panthers will host Burlington on Thursday, August 13th, at 10 am for their home opener.
Burlington Notre Dame will stay at home to play Davis County tomorrow, August 12th.
Fairfield started the season without dropping a set to Keokuk, completely shutting out the Chiefs in a 9-0 victory. Ria Ross had the toughest matchup in the #1-singles spot, escaping with 6-4 and 7-5 finals in her singles bout. The Trojans will face off against Fort Madison on the road on Thursday.
High School Volleyball
Burlington Notre Dame will host a scrimmage tomorrow, August 12th, with Wapello, Danville, and Winfield-Mt. Union making the trip.
High School Cross Country
Holy Trinity Catholic will start practice on Thursday, August 13th, at 8 am in front of the high school.
Conference Realignment
For the last several months, Central Lee has been eyeing a move away from the Southeast Iowa Super Conference and joining the Southeast Conference. In fact, the Central Lee Community School District requested to join the conference back in mid-June after being a part of the SEISC for over 30 years.
Last night at the Mt. Pleasant School District Board meeting, Panther Athletic Director Scot Lamm presented on the several factors that would go into Central Lee joining the Southeast Conference. Lamm talked about some of the positives adding Central Lee,
“Well, proximity is number one. I mean, they’re 20 minutes from us and so, you know, you’ve traveled around and seen enough of our sports teams. That makes a big difference when we’re going 20 minutes as opposed to an hour and a half. You know, they’re a growing district. You know, probably more benefit for them, you know, but our number one is proximity. You know, and then just the ability to get to eight teams is huge. You know, five years ago we were at five teams in our conference and so, just giving our conference a little more validity, you know, helping with scheduling, not having to see schools, you know, two or three times based on the sport. It does allow us to see someone else a little more often… So, it’ll be a great addition for us.”
Central Lee would start with middle school athletics joining the SEC in 2027 with varsity athletics coming over in 2028. Lamm, who is also on the state conference realignment committee, laid out the path for the Hawks to join the conference,
“Basically there’s two ways. If our conference completely agrees, which we do, and their conference completely agrees to let them out, which I’m not 100% on that. I don’t want to go on record for that. If both conferences completely agree, then it goes to kind of a fast track model in the conference realignment committee. And there’s not a lot of questions about that. If there’s some reason not to from someone, then that conference realignment committee steps in, looks at everything, and just looks at what makes the most sense, and then ultimately makes that decision. So, regardless, it will come down to the conference realignment committee looking statewide and making sure that this is a good fit and makes sense for everyone, and doesn’t leave anybody else out, you know, and searching, and kind of fills in the gaps across the state, and make sure that things are good for everyone. And then my last question for you, unless I think of one magically, but my last question for you, how exciting is it, you know, like you said, go from five teams just a couple years ago to now having eight teams, you know, kind of expand a little bit further on the map.”
Danville
The Bears have a couple Fall Sports Parent Meetings scheduled. Tonight, parents of high school football players will meet at 5 pm on the football bleachers. High school volleyball parents will congregate on August 17th at 6 pm in the gym, while junior high volleyball parents will meet on August 26th at 5:30 pm at the junior high gym.
Meet the Players Night
Winfield-Mt. Union will be holding their Meet the Players Night on August 19th following backpack night at 5 pm. The fall sport participants will be announced at 6:30 pm starting with Cross Country.
Southeastern Community College
The men’s soccer team will start the season against Bradley University today on the road.
The women’s soccer team will host Hannibal La Grange University tomorrow, August 12th, at 1 pm.
College Football
Iowa State will be displaying a new offense this year under first-year head coach Jimmy Rogers and one of the new names to look out for is running back Cameron Pettaway, a transfer from Bowling Green. The 2025 MAC Freshman of the Year was placed on the 2026 Paul Hornung Award watch list, the award given to the most versatile player in major college football.
Pettaway is also on the 2026 Jet Award preseason watch list, which is given to the nation’s top return specialist, after leading the nation in kick return average last year at 33 yards per return, as he also had a kick return touchdown. He will be looking for an expanded role with the Cyclones after averaging 5.1 yards per carry on only 72 carries last year.
This Day in Sports History
1919 – The Green Bay Packers football club is founded by George Calhoun and Curly Lambeau.
1929 – New York Yankees slugger Babe Ruth becomes the first MLB player to hit 500 home runs in a 6-5 loss to Cleveland.
1984 – Carl Lewis duplicates Jesse Owens’ 1936 feat, winning his 4th Olympic gold medal as part of the US 4x100m relay team.