High School Girls’ Tennis
Fairfield will head to Pella today for the Tulip City Tussle.
Mt. Pleasant will host Fort Madison on Monday, August 24th, at 4:30 pm.
Burlington Notre Dame will travel to Camanche on Thursday, August 27th.
High School Volleyball
WACO will be hosting a quad on Monday, August 24th, with New London making the trip at 5 pm.
Winfield-Mt. Union will hold a triangular on Monday with Danville and Keokuk competing at 5 pm.
Mt. Pleasant, Holy Trinity Catholic, and Columbus will head to Mediapolis on Tuesday, August 25th, for a scrimmage at 4:30 pm.
High School Football
Mt. Pleasant hosted their “Meet the Panthers” event last night that culminated in a scrimmage against Danville. The two teams traded drives on offense and heavily rotated between their varsity and junior varsity teams for almost a two-hour time frame. Bears head coach Cody Thompson knows his team will have some pretty big shoes to fill from last year’s squad, but was happy with their dynamic play in the scrimmage,
“We’re super athletic. A lot of our underclassmen, young guys are explosive. They’re one play type touchdown type kids. We just gotta continue to develop them and kind of get used to the physicality. And playing with good teams like this, you gotta be disciplined every down. That’s what some of our young guys lack. But overall, I’m happy with how our young guys performed. And we got a couple guys competing for some spots. So tonight was kind of their opportunity to go out and showcase why they’re the guy. So as coaches, we’ll sit down this weekend and kind of figure out who won the job.”
Danville kicks off the season on Friday, August 28th, at home against West Burlington/Notre Dame at 7 pm.
John Bowlin, entering his 4th season at helm for the Panthers, was excited to be back on the sideline but knows there are areas to clean up before next Friday,
“Yeah, it was great having a home crowd here and getting back on the field, being able to compete a little bit. I think we gotta go back and watch the film. I think we did some really efficient things out there. Definitely gotta clean a ton of things up.I think we had some holding penalties maybe they didn’t call that we gotta get a lot better at inside the trenches. I think we put the ball on the ground four times tonight. So that’s definitely work for us: ball security, a lot of little things, and that’s football. You can be a great athlete, great playmaker, but you gotta do all the little things right. And I think that’s what we gotta watch this weekend. And come back, get ready for Mediapolis on week one. Definitely gonna be a dogfight there on week one.”
The Bulldogs will await Mt. Pleasant on Friday with gametime at 7:30 pm. KILJ 105.5 FM, kilj.com, will be on the call with the pregame show at 7:15 pm.
In week zero action, Iowa Valley smacked Springville, 67-14. Pekin defeated Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont, 27-12, and Columbus fell to Cardinal, 44-0. The Wildcats will head to BGM on Friday at 7 pm.
Southeastern Community College
The volleyball team was living on the edge at the Opening Weekend Tournament yesterday, beating Macomb Community College and Harper College in five sets. The Blackhawks will look to continue their win streak today against College of Lake County for game one at 2:15 pm.
The men’s soccer team will host Carl Sandburg College tomorrow, August 23rd, at 5 pm.
The women’s soccer team will take on Lincoln Trail College at 4 pm on August 29th at home.
College Football
Both the University of Iowa and Iowa State have placed one player on the Chuck Bednarik Award watch list, which is given to the most outstanding defensive player in the country, and for the Hawkeyes it is Zach Lutmer, while the Cyclones have Isaac Terrell.
Lutmer recorded 71 tackles to go along with three interceptions and seven pass breakups last year to earn 2nd Team All-Big Ten honors from the league’s coaches. Lutmer is also on the watch list for the Bronko Nagurski Trophy and the Lott IMPACT trophy.
Terrell, a transfer from Washington State, was named 2025 Pac-12 Conference Top Defensive Line Performer after collecting 12 tackles for loss to go along with seven sacks.
This Day in Sports History
1950 – Althea Gibson becomes the first Black competitor in a US national tennis competition.
1965 – San Francisco Giants pitcher Juan Marichal hits Los Angeles Dodger catcher John Roseboro on the head with his bat causing a 14 minute brawl.
2007 – The Texas Rangers rout the Baltimore Orioles 30-3, the most runs scored by a team in modern MLB history.