Girls High School Basketball- The Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union has released their fourth rankings of the season–including the preseason–today and while the top teams remain the same there are a lot of new teams entering the top 15. Starting with Class 1A, the top 9 teams remain unchanged with Algona Bishop Garrigan keeping the top spot in the rankings. Montezuma, formerly ranked 10th, and Clarksville, formerly ranked 15th, fell out of the top 15 with North Mahaska and Riceville claiming the 14th and 15th spots, respectively. Burlington Notre Dame and Winfield-Mt. Union still touting undefeated records move another spot up in the rankings to 12th and 13th, respectively.
Class 2A kept the same order for the top three teams in Dike-New Hartford, Central Lyon, and Sibley-Ocheyedan; however, Underwood fell from 4th to 9th with every team within that range getting to move up a spot in the rankings. Two teams fell out in Ridge View and Beckman Catholic with South Hamilton taking over the 15th spot. Mediapolis fell from 11th to 14th after their loss to West Burlington, 60-53, on December 9th, which left room for the Falcons to soar over the Bulldogs to the 13th ranked spot.
A top three team fell in Class 3A as Estherville Lincoln Central and West Marshall remain on top of the rankings, respectively. Center Point-Urbana fell four spots from 3rd to 7th with a 5-3 record. Beyond that movement, Class 3A remained stable from 8th to 14th in the rankings with West Lyon replacing Spirit Lake at 15th.
Cedar Rapids Xavier is still the top dog in Class 4A, but Dallas Center-Grimes and North Polk got to move up a spot to 2nd and 3rd, respectively, after Ballard fell to Carlisle 57-48 two days ago. Due to the big win, Carlisle jumped from 11th to 8th. North Scott experienced the largest fall after going 1-2 this past week as they are no longer ranked after being 8th in last week’s rankings. ADM was ranked 13th last week but fell out of the top 15. Central DeWitt was one of the teams that defeated North Scott this past week and found themselves in 12th this week. Waverly-Shell Rock also went from unranked to jumping Gilbert and Marion to be ranked 13th this week.
Lastly, Class 5A had its top 4 spots go unchanged with Waterloo West keeping the top spot. Waukee Northwest fell from 5th to 9th while Ankeny moved up three spots from 10th to 7th. Linn-Marr was replaced by Sioux City East for the final spot in the Top 15th as the Black Raiders currently tout a 5-0 record.