High School Football
WACO will host practice from 5 pm to 8 pm tonight.
Van Buren County will have their practice this week starting at 7 am and going to 10 am.
Danville will continue practice this week as the Bears look to make it back to the playoffs.
High School Volleyball
WACO will practice tonight from 5 to 8 pm.
Van Buren County will have their practice starting at 4:30 pm.
Mt. Pleasant officially started practice this week, but the Panthers had strong participation throughout the summer, filling up the weight room and working through team camp last week. Head coach Logan Wall sees a lot of promise for the squad after last week’s camps,
“The girls really bonded as a team and we were focused on not only those fundamentals but working on rotations and getting our setters and hitters together to have good communication there. And then we, yeah, we went to Des Moines and did a team camp. There were 103 teams participating, so we had some great competition. That’s our first year doing that and we got really good feedback from our fans that attended just saying how well the girls looked and how they were working together and so we’re excited to just build on that and we saw some great things, but we’re always looking for areas to improve as well. So, we’ve been working on that this week.”
Meet the Players Nights
New London’s “Meet the Players” night will be on Friday, August 23rd, at 5:30 pm with cross country and volleyball introductions and scrimmage taking place in the Charles Lorber Gym. On the football field, cheer and football will have their introductions with a football scrimmage against Wapello to follow.
Winfield-Mt. Union’s “Meet the Players” will take place on Wednesday, August 21st, at 6:30 pm.
Mt. Pleasant will have their “Meet the Panthers” night on Friday, August 23rd, starting with an intrasquad volleyball game at the high school gym at 5 pm. The football team will scrimmage Danville at 7:30 pm.
High School Cross Country
New London will practice this week with a 9 am start time. 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.
Fairfield will continue having practice at 7:45 am at Waterworks for the week.
Van Buren County will start their practice at 4 pm at the track.
Mt. Pleasant has been running through their team camp this week, but girls’ head coach Lyle Murray talked about a tradition that might be just as important,
“They get to design our T-shirts and a lot of times they’ll come up with their own catch phrases and that’s fun to watch because you know it comes from the kids, not from the coaches, and it usually has some type of meaning to them… team building for sure working together.”
College Football
The University of Iowa will officially kick off the season on Saturday, August 31st, at home against Illinois State at 11 am.
Iowa State will take on North Dakota on August 31st at 2:30 pm at home.
Award Watch List
Iowa’s Jay Higgins continues to reel in preseason adulation as he was named a 2024 Sporting News Preseason All-American. Higgins was the anchor to a Hawkeye defense that allowed only 14.8 points per game last season, which ranked fourth nationally.
The Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award preseason watch list will have both Iowa’s Cade McNamara and Iowa State’s Rocco Becht. The award is given to the top senior or upperclassman quarterback set to graduate with their class.
McNamara is hoping to build upon an injury laden season that saw him play in just four complete contests, throwing for 505 yards and four touchdowns.
Becht is looking to build upon his redshirt freshman season that saw him earn Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year. Becht tossed for an ISU freshman record 231 completions, 3,120 yards, and 23 touchdowns, while leading the Cyclones to a 7-6 record.
This Day in Sports History
1958 – 25th NFL Chicago All-Star Game: All-Stars 35, Detroit 19. Of the 42 games played, the College All-Stars won just nine contests.
1964 – Mayor Richard J. Daley declares “Ernie Banks Day” in Chicago, honoring the Cubs baseball player.
1975 – Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver is ejected from both games of a home doubleheader against the Texas Rangers. He is the only manager to get thrown out of both games of a doubleheader twice.