Prep Football- The fall season is nearly upon us with the first game of the football season for Class 3A a mere three weeks away; so, it seems like a compelling opportunity to pick our way through District 4 and decide where these six teams stand.

Mt. Pleasant

The Panthers have the most to prove and, unfortunately, replace. Most of their offensive line graduated last season in Franklin Tousignant, Harmon Ensminger, Logan Borders, and Miguel Navarrette. Payson Coleman and Phoenix Watson, their two top pass catchers, graduated along with starting safety Carson Andreasen, second leading tackler.

The Panthers are attempting to right a lot of wrongs this season as they have gone 0-9 the last two seasons and haven’t won a district game since 2020. However, head coach John Bowlin is creating a culture that is eager to change both narratives.

One of the players looking to lead that charge is senior Payton Walker. The ultimate utility man this past season, he led the team in passing, rushing, and tackling. Walker also caught four passes for 51 yards and is the team’s punter.

With the relative lack of experience, it was nice for coach Bowlin to participate in a camp put on by Coe College with West Liberty during camp week that allowed his team to get some reps,

“I thought our line, you know, with the spot we need to go a lot better at, but our line played physical, did a good job, knew what they were doing” explained Bowlin. “You know, I thought our quarterbacks did a great job of making some reads. So, we got a few new wrinkles in the offense we’re working on.”

Biggest Strength: Payton Walker

Biggest Question: O-Line

Keokuk

The Chiefs are probably the most intriguing school in the district. Keokuk has finished above 0.500 in just two of the past 10 seasons with the most recent occurring in 2019.

Nevertheless, they doubled their win total from a year ago to finish 4-5 and could have very well finished 6-3 as they went 0-2 in one possession games. The Chiefs also return talented quarterback Brenton Hoard, who combined for 2,414 yards and 22 touchdowns, and Mason Claus, who led the team in tackles with 94.5.

All of this to finally mention that they have a new head coach, former NFL wide receiver and current Iowa Hawkeye record holder, Marvin McNutt. He coached two all-conference receivers at Coe College before getting the call to move to Keokuk.

Despite the lack of recent program success, McNutt is going to coach his team hard and set high expectations,

“…Let’s see where we can take this program, we will shoot for the moon and land next to the stars.”

Biggest Strength: Passing Offense

Biggest Question: Rushing Attack and Defense

Washington

The Demons could be looking at the most improvement from last year to this year. Washington touted a young squad last year with most of their offensive production coming from juniors and sophomores.

This squad was on the cusp of finishing with a record near 0.500 instead of going 2-7. Tied with Fort Madison after a quarter, a narrow 23-20 loss to Fairfield, and two poor quarters against Oskaloosa to fall 28-14 are examples of a team that could have finished 5-4.

The Demons return dual threat quarterback Logan McDole and their leading rusher in Kael Williams as he finished with 594 yards and seven touchdowns on the ground. Add in Mason Morgan on the outside contributing nearly 40% of the receiving stats last season.

Biggest Strength: Experience

Biggest Question: Middle Defense

Assumption

The Knights were a scary team for a majority of last season, especially after clobbering Solon 34-7 to start the season as the Spartans found their groove late in the season, falling to eventual champion Williamsburg at the UNI-Dome.

Assumption stumbled twice during the regular season with losses to North Scott and Mt. Vernon, but outscored Washington, Keokuk, and Mt. Pleasant 139 to 0 to close out the year. However, the 7-2 Knights lost 58-45 in the first round of the playoffs to West Delaware.

The problem? Their starting quarterback, running back, and wide receivers have all graduated. Braylon Thomsen is their only returner that managed to find paydirt at all out of their 48 touchdowns and he only accounted for four scores. Additionally, of their top 11 tacklers, nine of them were seniors.

Biggest Strength: Program Consistency (Have finished above 0.500 in 8 of their past 10 seasons)

Biggest Question: Every skill position except for quarterback

Fort Madison

Derek Doherty has continued to right the ship that is the Bloodhound football program after nine consecutive losing seasons Fort Madison has gone 26-12 in their last four years with three trips to the postseason.

After dominating teams in 2022 with a dominating defense and an offense that could move the ball; 2023 saw the Bloodhounds depend on the clutch gene with a 3-0 record in one possession games leading to a 6-3 regular season mark.

The next step for Fort Madison has continued to be success outside of southeast Iowa as they fell handily to Williamsburg, Assumption, Mt. Vernon, and Solon in the first round of the playoffs.

However, Fort Madison’s problem is very similar to Assumption, the loss of a lot of seniors. The Bloodhounds lost their top three tacklers, second leading rusher, and leading wide receiver. The retention of dual threat quarterback Marcus Guzman, who scored 21 total touchdowns, is the anchor for this team.

Biggest Strength: Marcus Guzman

Biggest Question: Replacing Teague Smith and Ike Thacher

Mt. Vernon

The last team to talk about is the squad that took the district championship and a loss to Solon being their only blemish during the regular season. However, the season ended in disappointment as Williamsburg knocked the Mustangs out of the playoffs in the quarterfinals, 38-35.

Their nine wins marked the 5^th time in the last 10 seasons that the Mustangs were able to complete that feat. However, this success has come at a costly price.

The Mustangs swept the District Players of the Year in Joey Rhomberg (offense), Jackson Jaspers (defense), Andrew Heck (O-Line), and Ethan Wood (D-Line).

Rhomberg, the starting quarterback for the last two seasons who threw for 49 touchdowns, Jaspers, and Heck were all seniors. Along with their leading rusher in Jackson Hird and leading receiver in Evan Brase.

This team will need to replace most of their offensive line and find some replacements at skill positions. Junior Kellen Haverback threw three touchdowns to zero interceptions in limited action and Cooper Hird rambled for 360 yards and four touchdowns at tailback.

Biggest Strength: Defense

Biggest Question: Offensive Line

High School Football

Winfield-Mt. Union’s 7th through 12th graders will finish their camp tonight from 5 to 7 pm. Head coach Scott McCarty has enjoyed teaching the fundamentals this past week to both the high schoolers and the youth,

“Youth Camp is always fun to get the young kids in and start getting them excited about football, get their parents excited about it. You know, we don’t get too intense with it. We like to have the kids have fun and play games and things like that, and we have our older guys stick around and help out. So, it’s fun for them to interact with the young kids because those young kids always look up to the high school players and our high school camp, kind of an extension of practice, but we’ll do some fun things. We feed our kids like tonight we’ll have a pool party after. You know, so it’s been good, a lot of learning, a lot of new faces and some new places. And so, it’s kind of nice to be kind of a slowed down environment where you’re not pressured with the game at the end of the week and get a chance guys to learn some things before we get going whole hog here next week.”

WACO’s week zero game against Central City has allowed them to hit the practice field this week. Head coach Chad Edeker has been most impressed with the leadership shown by his players,

“Oh, I have been really impressed with that, that group of senior leaders. You know we’ve thrown the ball really well. I mean we’re not a big throw team. We’re a run team. But you know these first couple of days like you get to the helmet, you can learn running plays, we’re going to go. But we worked a lot on our passing game the first three days here and I thought Clayton throwing the ball really well. And Gage and Isaac and Loudon have done a great job of of catching the ball. You know, we’re not, I would say we’re not transitioning into a passing team, but you know, we do have a lot of skilled guys with a lot of speed. So, we’re going to be able to, we’re going to look to try to get the ball in space a little bit more than we have in the past.”

WACO will have their football practice tonight at 5 pm. 

Mt. Pleasant will participate in another camp tonight at 5:30 pm at West Liberty.

Van Buren County will finish up their football camp for the high schoolers this morning with a 7 am start time.

High School Volleyball

Mt. Pleasant will be traveling to Des Moines for a team camp today.

High School Cross Country

New London will start practicing on Monday, August 12th, at 9 am and runners must have a current physical and signed concussion form.

Junior high runners are encouraged to join the high school practices for extra conditioning as their first practice is scheduled for Friday, August 23rd, at 4 pm.

Danville had their informational meeting last night about the upcoming season. If you were unable to attend, then you can email Coach Gourley at lucas.gourley@danvillecsd.org.

Fairfield will have voluntary practices today at 8 am at the high school. Practices will officially get underway at 7:45 am on August 12th at Waterworks.

Mt. Pleasant will start their team camp next week and the girls’ head coach Lyle Murray talked about what the camp consists of and what the teams are looking to accomplish,

“Basically everybody getting together and running together pretty much for the first time. We’re very fortunate to stay down at the Oakland Mills cabins, thanks to the conservation department down there. They’ve been very generous to us, and we try to go around picking up trash and tidying up things in the area to help them out a little. That we do some team building exercises. Obviously, we do a lot of running, we’ll run twice a day and then on Wednesday we have a hill workout, and the kids know it’s coming every year and it’s not an easy one. But we try to make it as pleasant as running hills can be. And then yeah, just watching just kind of like, you know, I keep saying it, but team building, you know, just watching them come together.”

High School Baseball

The Iowa High School Baseball Coaches Association released their All-State teams for the 2024 season and six athletes from southeast Iowa made the squad.

In Class 1A, Burlington Notre Dame had three players make the All-State Second Team in Spencer Brent, Landry Haberichter, and Jaxon Sadler. Brent led the team with 39 RBIs and a 0.458 batting average, while Haberitchter cracked a team leading 13 doubles. Sadler recorded a 1.33 ERA with nine wins. Caden Schwenker and Dylan Kipp found spots on the All-State Third Team.

For Class 2A, West Burlington’s Brock Thuleen earned All-State Second Team honors. The junior led the team in batting average, home runs, RBIs, and doubles.

Iowa Football

The Hawkeyes will be hosting their annual “Kids Day at Kinnick” tomorrow, August 10th. The open practice will begin at 11 am with the gates opening at 10 am. Team members will be signing autographs for kids around 10:30 am along the front of the west and south stands. Admission is free for all fans.

Award Watch Lists

Rocco Becht will look to keep slinging the football down the field for Iowa State this season as he was put on the Davey O’Brien Award watch list, the award is given to the nation’s top college quarterback.

Becht had a fantastic freshman season, throwing for 3,120 yards, 23 touchdowns, and completing 231 passes, all Cyclone freshman records. That stat line culminated into Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year and Second-Team Freshman All-American honors.

This Day in Sports History

1936 – Jesse Owens is part of the American 4 x 100m relay team that wins gold in world record (39.8) at the Berlin Olympics; his fourth gold medal of the Games.

1975 – First NFL game in the Louisiana Superdome, Houston defeats the Saints 13-7.

1988 – The Chicago Cubs beat the Mets 6-4 in their first official night game at Wrigley Field.

High School Football

Winfield-Mt. Union’s 7th through 12th graders will practice from 5 to 7 pm tonight and tomorrow, August 9th.

WACO will have their football practice starting at 5 pm. 

Fairfield’s camps will conclude tonight with the high schoolers scheduled from 4 to 6 pm and 5th through 8th graders following from 6 to 8 pm. All camps are held at the high school practice fields.

Coe College hosted a camp for Mt. Pleasant and West Liberty last night, allowing for the teams to get some extra reps against a different opponent and for head coach John Bowlin the camp provided insight for his young squad,

“So, during our camp week, we get to be a little more physical here and you know we weren’t going to the ground or anything, but we were getting those reps not against ourselves; really great reps just for what we’ve done. You know, we’re two days in and we put in just a limited amount of things, but getting to see where we’re at on that and you know we start the week next week. So, it’s to us, it’s really beneficial just to see it against somebody else and be able to go a little bit more live.”

The two teams will participate in another camp on Friday at 5:30 pm at West Liberty.

Van Buren County will be having an informational meeting tonight at 5:30 pm in the classroom directly across from the wrestling room at the high school. Football camp for the high schoolers continues through Friday with a 7 am start time.

High School Volleyball

Mt. Pleasant will be hosting their volleyball camp tonight with 5th through 8th graders practicing from 4 to 5:30 pm and high school players going from 6 to 8:30 pm at the high school gym.

The Panthers will be traveling to Des Moines for a team camp tomorrow, August 9th.

High School Cross Country

New London will start practicing on Monday, August 12th, at 9 am and runners must have a current physical and signed concussion form.

Junior high runners are encouraged to join the high school practices for extra conditioning as their first practice is scheduled for Friday, August 23rd, at 4 pm.

Danville will be having an informational meeting tonight at 6:30 pm at the high school chorus room about the upcoming season. You will get to meet the coaches, learn about the team expectations, and get details about a practice schedule.

If you are unable to attend, then you can email Coach Gourley at lucas.gourley@danvillecsd.org.

Fairfield will have voluntary practices today and tomorrow at 8 am at the high school. Practices will officially get underway at 7:45 am on August 12th at Waterworks.

Iowa Football

The Hawkeyes will be hosting their annual “Kids Day at Kinnick” on Saturday, August 10th. The open practice will begin at 11 am with the gates opening at 10 am. Team members will be signing autographs for kids around 10:30 am along the front of the west and south stands. Admission is free for all fans.

Award Watch Lists

Iowa State is going to have a fun offense with Abu Sama III being put on the Doak Walker Award watch list and now Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel being named to the Biletnikoff Award watch list; the award given to the best wide receiver in the nation. 

Noel hauled in 66 receptions last season to the tune of 820 yards and seven touchdowns. Higgins reeled in 63 receptions for 983 yards and six touchdowns, including a 214-yard performance in the Liberty Bowl against Memphis. 

Another receiving threat for the Cyclones could be looking to grab some hardware as Isaiah Alston has been put on the Comeback Player of the Year Award watch list. Alston played in just four games last year, averaging 29.6 yards per catch with two touchdowns in his limited action.

The injury bug hit the University of Iowa last year, leading to tight end Luke Lachey and quarterback Cade McNamara also being named to the Comeback Player of the Year Award watch list. 

Lachey was knocked out for the season in game number three, finishing the year with 10 receptions for 131 yards. In his career, he has 662 yards and four touchdowns.

McNamara played only five games last season, collecting 505 yards and four touchdowns in his first season with the Hawkeyes. 

Prospect League

REX had the bases loaded in the top of the 9th inning, but Jared Herzog tabbed back-to-back strikeouts to claim the Prospect League Championship for the Illinois Valley Pistol Shrimp, 4-2. Herzog pitched six innings of relief, allowing only one hit and striking out 11. 

This Day in Sports History

1950 – Florence Chadwick swims the English Channel in a record time of 13 hours and 23 minutes.

1976 – The Chicago White Sox took the field wearing shorts instead of traditional baseball pants during the first game of a doubleheader against the Kansas City Royals. Despite winning the game 5–2, the shorts were such a disaster the White Sox dressed in pants for the 2nd game, which they lost 7–1.

1992 – The original US ‘Dream Team’ wins the basketball gold at the Barcelona Olympics 117-85 over Croatia; features superstars Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Scottie Pippen, Charles Barkley, and Patrick Ewing.