High School Basketball

The girls’ basketball season tipped off last night and Winfield-Mt. Union clobbered New London 65-28 to start the season off with a road victory. The Wolves won the game from the post as Kynlee Buffington secured her first career double-double with 23 points and 17 rebounds, while Josie Nelson put up 17 points and 11 rebounds for her own double-double. Winfield-Mt. Union head coach Mendy McCreight talked about her two post players after the game, 

“It’s great. Our two post players, Kynlee Buffington and Josie Nelson, really stepped up for us. Josie had a lot of great put backs on rebounds. She’s tough on the boards. She’s all over the floor as you saw tonight. Kynlee played an amazing game and she was so nervous stepping in, playing that starting role as a freshman. But she came in and did really well for us and led us to a victory.”

New London had Morgan Jones, Maison Nelson, and Megan Lee each score eight points in the loss. The Tigers will hit the road to face off against Davis County on Tuesday, November 26th, at 6 pm. 

The Winfield-Mt. Union girls’ team will host Pekin on Tuesday at 6 pm for their home opener. 

WACO took on Van Buren County in a scrimmage last night and swept the night with the girls’ winning 51-47 and the boys’ exiting with the victory 65-50. The WACO girls’ team will travel to Wapello on Tuesday for the first game of the season with tipoff at 6 pm. 

West Burlington will scrimmage Fort Madison at home tonight at 6 pm. 

Holy Trinity Catholic will compete against Keokuk today for a scrimmage on the road. 

High School Girls’ Basketball Rankings

The Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union released the preseason rankings yesterday and Keokuk entered the Class 4A rankings at #13. The Chiefs will be looking for their fourth straight conference title as Southeast Conference Player of the Year for 2023 Kendra Boatman returns to the lineup for her junior season. Keokuk will start the season at home against Quincy Notre Dame at 7:30 pm on Tuesday as they look to build upon their 19 win season last year. 

Postseason Football

West Lyon’s defense shut down Spirit Lake on their way to the Class 2A state championship in a 42-7 thrashing. The Wildcat defense forced five turnovers and allowed only eight rushing yards in the win. Tate Hawf rushed for 114 yards and two touchdowns as West Lyon claimed their sixth state title in program history. 

The Class 3A championship belongs to Wahlert Catholic after the Golden Eagles demolished Humboldt 49-14 yesterday. Tom Scherr had a complete game for Wahlert Catholic, collecting 177 all-purpose yards and three total touchdowns. This was the Golden Eagles’ first state championship in school history.

In the most improbable game of the night, Valley scored 28 unanswered points to take a 35 to 24 lead late in the Class 5A championship, but Southeast Polk is now a four-time defending state champion for a reason as the Rams scored two touchdowns in the final 90 seconds to win 38-35. Holden Hanson carved up the Tiger defense for 332 passing yards and five total touchdowns. 

High School Wrestling

The Mt. Pleasant and Mediapolis girls’ teams will travel to Burlington for the Grayhound Invite today at 10 am. Mt. Pleasant head coach Anthony Blint is excited to see how his team performs today,

“Well just all of them to look out for you know it’s the first competition against other people so that’ll be the biggest thing to see where we’re at this early season and know what we need to build on for later in the year but of course Zenlynn Lee coming back off knee surgery from last year so we’ll see there and young freshmen there so we’ll just see what we have and see what we need to build on.”

The Columbus/Winfield-Mt. Union and Fairfield girls’ teams will travel to Wilton for a tournament today.

The WACO girls’ team will participate in a tournament at BGM today.

Southeastern Community College

The men’s basketball team picked up another narrow victory last night against North Arkansas College 77-73. The Blackhawks will take on Missouri State University tonight to conclude the Grizzly Classic. 

College Football

#22 Iowa State will face off against Utah tonight at 6:30 pm on the road. KILJ 98.5 FM and AM 1130 will be on the call.

Iowa will travel to Maryland today at 11 am. KILJ 105.5 FM will have the broadcast. 

College Basketball

The #5 Iowa State men’s team will play #4 Auburn in the first round of the Maui Invitational on Monday, November 25th, at 8 pm. 

The Iowa men’s team’s poor three-point shooting grounded the Hawkeyes last night as Utah State escaped with a 77-69 victory. Brock Harding led the scoring with 19 points, while Owen Freeman tabbed a double-double with 18 points and 11 rebounds. Iowa will compete against USC Upstate on Tuesday, November 26th, at 7 pm at home. 

The #8 Iowa State women’s team will head back home to take on Drake tomorrow, November 24th, at 2 pm. 

The Iowa women’s team will host Washington State tomorrow at 3 pm. 

This Day in Sports History

1984 – Boston College Quarterback Doug Flutie passes for 472 yards, including the game ending 48 yard touchdown to beat Miami 47-45.

1991 – Brigham Young University quarterback Ty Detmer finishes with a then-NCAA career record of 15,031 passing yards.

1991 – The Sacramento Kings end the NBA’s longest road losing streak at 43 games.

Prep Basketball- The Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union (IGHSAU) released their preseason rankings ahead of tonight’s season openers across the entire state, including a local Southeast Iowa Super Conference showdown between New London and Winfield-Mt. Union.

Class 5A

Johnston enters the season as the favorite after soaring to a perfect 26-0 record and the state championship a year ago. The Dragons return three of their starters from a year ago, including two 300-plus point scorers in Amani Jenkins and Jenica Lewis. Dowling Catholic and Ankeny Centennial round out the top three, respectively.

Iowa City High is expected to have the biggest turnaround this season after going 8-15 a year ago, they are ranked #14 to start the season. #11 Waukee Northwest and #15 Cedar Rapids Washington are two other teams who start the year ranked after touting below 0.500 records last season.

Class 4A

Clear Creek Amana took home the championship a season ago with a perfect record. This year the Clippers are expected to take a small dip as they enter the year ranked #5. Bishop Heelan is the favorite followed by North Polk and Sioux Center, respectively.

A local team to look out for will be #13 Keokuk. The Chiefs have won the Southeast Conference the past three seasons, losing only one conference game in the process. Additionally, Keokuk has lost only 14 games in the last three seasons.

Their full-court pressure defense will cause fits as this team returns almost everyone, graduating only one senior from last year’s team in Makenna Altgilbers, but they also return SEC Player of the Year Kendra Boatman, who averaged 18.6 points, 5 assists, and 4.4 steals per game.

Class 3A

In the biggest surprises of the preseason rankings, Solon, last year’s champions, are outside the top 15. A big reason for the Spartans departure is four of their five starters graduated from a year ago.

Aptly, last year’s runner-up Estherville-Lincoln Central will headline the class. Mount Vernon is #2 and Wahlert Catholic enters at #3. West Delaware is one of the teams expected to make a jump in talent from a year ago as they are ranked #14 to start the year after going 10-13 last season.

Class 2A

Dike-New Hartford’s reign atop Class 2A may finally come to an end as the four-time consecutive state champion is now ranked in the top 15. The loss of Payton Petersen and Maryn Bixby, who contributed over 50% of the team’s point production, is the main reason.

So, taking over the top spot is Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont as the Rockets lost only two games last year, falling to Sioux Central, who is also not ranked to start the season. In fact, half of the teams that made the state tournament are out of the preseason top 15: Grundy Center and Panorama.

Westwood and Cascade enter the list at #2 and #3, respectively.

Class 1A

North Linn is expected to excel again as last year’s champion, but it will start as the #2 team in the Class as Bishop Garrigan, who was eliminated in the state quarterfinal round in 2023, enters the year as the favorite.

Montezuma is ranked #3 followed by #4 Riceville, #5 Mount Ayr, and last year’s runner-up #6 Newell-Fonda.

Meet the Players Night

Last night was Meet the Panthers night at the Mt. Pleasant high school gym where the night kicked off with a $1,000 donation from the Mt. Pleasant VFW to the Mt. Pleasant Athletic Booster Club, as they announced that $1.2 million dollars has been spent on the various Panther athletic projects since 2007. 

The winter athletic sports teams were introduced with a couple basketball scrimmages to end out the night. Mt. Pleasant boys’ basketball head coach Eric Rawson thought his team performed well in front of the community,

“Yeah, it was a great showing. And we want to thank the administration for putting it together and the booster club. And it’s certainly a nice way to highlight our winter activities. And it was a great showing. And the community came out and supported. And it was good to see.”

High School Basketball

The Winfield-Mt. Union girls’ team will start the season tonight at New London at 6 pm.

The Columbus girls’ team will travel to Tipton, while the boys’ team will host English Valleys tonight for a scrimmage.

WACO will take on Van Buren County tonight at home in a scrimmage. WACO’s boys’ head coach Chayse Roth discussed what he’s looking to see out of his squad tonight,

“…Defensively it’s going to be a little bit different style. So, hopefully we can kind of get that installed and hopefully see, you know, getting a little more game action, not, you know, practice reps for that defense is going to help a bunch. And we’ve said it a few times, we want to play fast, get up down the floor, offensive transition, you know, we’ll see how good of condition we are. I mean, if we can beat a lot of teams down the floor, that’s an easy way to score some points. So mainly, yeah, offensive transition. Our man-to-man defense is going to be key these first couple practice games.”

West Burlington will scrimmage Fort Madison at home tomorrow, November 23rd, at 6 pm. 

Holy Trinity Catholic will compete against Keokuk tomorrow for a scrimmage on the road. 

Postseason Football

The 8-Player championship game quickly got out of hand yesterday as Remsen St. Mary’s squashed Gladbrook-Reinbeck 51-12 for their fourth state title in program history. Landon Waldschmitt turned in an MVP performance, collecting 333 all-purpose yards and all seven touchdowns for the Hawks. 

Tri-Center beat the defending Class A champions West Hancock at their own game, rushing for 153 yards in a contentious 14-10 win yesterday for their first state championship in school history. Carter Kunze led the charge with 168 rushing yards and two total touchdowns. 

Grundy Center can now be considered a dynasty after capturing their third straight Class 1A state championship in a 28-7 mauling of Dike-New Hartford. Continuing the theme of the day, quarterback Judd Jirovsky tossed for 92 yards and added 121 yards and three touchdowns on the ground. This was the Spartans’ sixth title in program history. 

North Polk entered the night as the #1 team of Class 4A and the Comets exited the UNI-Dome as the #1 team after taking down Pella last night 24-14. Nathan Feldmann helped lead North Polk to their first state championship as the quarterback ran for 117 yards and all three touchdowns. 

Spirit Lake and West Lyon will play for the Class 2A state championship today at 10 am.

The Class 3A championship between Wahlert Catholic and Humboldt is scheduled for 1 pm today.

Valley and Southeast Polk will compete tonight at 7 for the Class 5A championship.

High School Wrestling

The Wapello girls’ team will compete at Bellevue tonight for a tournament. 

The Mt. Pleasant and Mediapolis girls’ teams will travel to Burlington for the Grayhound Invite tomorrow, November 23rd, at 10 am. 

The Columbus/Winfield-Mt. Union and Fairfield girls’ teams will travel to Wilton for a tournament tomorrow. 

The WACO girls’ team will participate in a tournament at BGM tomorrow. 

Southeastern Community College

The men’s basketball team will be back in action tonight at 5 pm against North Arkansas College on the road. 

College Volleyball

Mount Mercy’s freshman outside hitter and former Holy Trinity Catholic standout Mary Kate Bendlage nabbed Heart of America All-Conference Second Team after a terrific season. Bendlage led the team with 448 kills on a 0.128 kill efficiency. Additionally, the freshman collected 416 digs, 30 blocks, and 29 aces as the Mustangs finished the season with a 16-17 record. 

College Football

#22 Iowa State will face off against Utah tomorrow, November 23rd, at 6:30 pm on the road. KILJ 98.5 FM and AM 1130 will be on the call.

Iowa will travel to Maryland tomorrow at 11 am. KILJ 105.5 FM will have the broadcast. 

College Basketball

The #5 Iowa State men’s team will play #4 Auburn in the first round of the Maui Invitational on Monday, November 25th, at 8 pm. 

The Iowa men’s team will face off against Utah State for the NABC Hall of Fame Classic tonight at 7 pm on the road. KILJ 105.5 FM will have the call.

The #8 Iowa State women’s team will head back home to take on Drake on Sunday, November 24th, at 2 pm. 

The Iowa women’s team will host Washington State on Sunday at 3 pm. 

This Day in Sports History

1950 – 7,021 fans see the Fort Wayne Pistons defeat the Minneapolis Lakers 19-18 at Minneapolis Auditorium; lowest ever NBA score of 37 combined points.

2008 – Patrick Roy’s #33 jersey is retired by the Montreal Canadiens.

2016 – The ‘Vegas Golden Knights’ is revealed as the Las Vegas NHL expansion team’s name.