Sports, Friday, September 18th

By: Nathan Bloechl — sports@kilj.com 

Friday Football Feast Rages On in Week 4:

The fourth week of the Iowa High School Football season is upon us and tonight — homecoming for Mount Pleasant — will be a doozy, as the Panthers welcome in the sixth-ranked (3A) Washington Demons.

Washington enters play tonight with a record of 3-0, after beating Bettendorf, Solon and Fort Madison in that order.

The Demons are led by senior quarterback Trashaun Willis, who has taken over the quarterbacking reins left behind by Luke Turner.

Willis has thrown for 261 yards and two scores, while rushing for an additional 157 yards and four touchdowns.

Washington has won the last nine meetings between the schools, including last year’s 64-61 heart-breaker that left Mount Pleasant out of the Class 3A Playoff Field.

Each of the last three meetings have been decided by single-digits.

The Panthers last win against Washington came on October 3rd, 2008.

Mount Pleasant is led by their own senior signal-caller Jack Johnson.

Johnson is coming off his best game of the year last week, when he ran for 223 yards and three touchdowns in Mount Pleasant’s 21-6 road win at Fairfield.

On the season he’s totaled 465 yards rushing, 392 yards passing and nine total touchdowns.

Tonight’s game will kick at 7:30 p.m. from Mapleleaf Athletic Complex.

Air-time on KILJ-FM will be 7:00 p.m. for the Panther Tailgate Show.

Other area tilts tonight include:

  • Louisa-Muscatine vs. Cardinal
  • Columbus vs. Highland
  • Wapello vs. Iowa City Regina
  • New London vs. Lone Tree
  • Pekin vs. Mediapolis (Saturday, September 19th)
  • WACO vs. Moravia
  • Van Buren County vs. Sigourney-Keota
  • Iowa Valley vs. Winfield-Mount Union
  • West Burlington/Notre Dame vs. Williamsburg
  • Fairfield vs. Burlington
  • Keokuk vs. Fort Madison

Area Volleyball Round-Up:

#3 (1A) New London 3, Notre Dame 1

Notre Dame took game one 26-24, but the third-ranked New London Tigers rallied back for 25-16, 25-15 and 25-17 wins to improve to 6-0 last night at New London High School.

Keaura Williams had 14 kills to pace the Tiger offense, while Sofie Reighard added 10.

Gabby Deery and Katy Stephens were both outstanding for the Nikes drilling 24 kills apiece.

The Nikes fell to 0-2.

New London will take part in the Keokuk Tournament this weekend, where they will lock horns with the top-ranked Holy Trinity Crusders among other area programs.

Mount Pleasant 3, Albia 1

Mount Pleasant scuffled in game two, but otherwise dominated Albia yesterday, picking up a 3-1 win over the now 7-3 Lady Dees.

The Panthers rolled in games one, three and four — picking up 25-17, 25-15 and 25-14 wins respectively.

Their lone loss was a 25-12 game two defeat.

The win improved Mount Pleasant to 6-10 on the year, they’ll compete tomorrow at the Ottumwa Tournament against Albia, Burlington, Davis County, E-B-F, Fairfield, Ottumwa and Washington.

Volleyball will get started at 8:00 a.m.

#1 (1A) Holy Trinity 3, Van Buren 0 

The top-ranked Holy Trinity Crusaders rolled to 25-21, 25-16 and 25-13 victories as they cruised past Van Buren County in a Southeast Iowa Super Conference showdown, last night.

Claire Pothitakis led the Crusaders with 15 kills while Brooke Mueller chipped in with six.

Kassi Randolph, the do-it-all star for Holy Trinity, finished with five kills, 14 assists and four aces.

Holy Trinity upped their ledger to 6-3.

Winfield-Mount Union 3, Highland 0

Winfield-Mount Union improved to 11-4 last night, blitzing Highland 25-12, 25-8, 25-16.

Jenna Buffington had 11 kills to lead the way, while Melina Oepping chipped in with five.

Keely Malone had a team high 13 assists, while Kayla Edwards added nine.

The victory kept Winfield unblemished in the Southeast Iowa Super Conference North Division at 4-0.

Mediapolis 3, Louisa-Muscatine 2; Mediapolis 3, Columbus 0 

Mediapolis picked up two North Division wins yesterday, taking down the Falcons of Louisa-Muscatine 3-2 while sweeping Columbus 3-0.

The Bullettes took down L-M 25-17, 25-14, 19-25, 17-25 and 18-16.

The win over Columbus came a little easier, inking 25-16, 25-11 and 25-19 wins.

Josie Wolter combined for 26 kills on the evening.

The pair of wins moved Mediapolis’ win streak to five matches — they’re now 5-4 on the season.

They’ll be back at it tomorrow at the Lisbon Tournament, when they take on Monticello and West Burlington.

49th Annual Timm Lamb Invite Results, Area Finishers:

The Mount Pleasant girls’ finished third in Class A, while the Danville-New London girls dominated Class B at the 49th Annual Timm Lamb Invite last night.

Cristina Carthey and Belle Meador finished 5th and 6th respectively to lead the Panthers.

Malena Bloomquist of Fairfield was the top girls’ finisher in Class A, running 21:13.1.

Meanwhile in Class B, Addison Parrot paced the girls’ race blazing the field in 19:39.2 to help Danville-New London capture the team title.

Kamryn Sherwood, Penelope Sowell and Cassidy Yaley all finished inside the top-10 for Danville-New Lodnon, who was 34 points better than second-place Mediapolis.

Meanwhile on the boys’ side of things, Mount Pleasant finished 5th overall in Class A, getting top-20 finishes from Luke Ryon and Ben Carthey.

Ryon ran 18:11.1 for 15th overall, while freshman Ben Carthey ran 18:14.9 for 16th.

Lance Sobaski of Washington took home the individual title, finishing in a robust 16:42.8.

Muscatine took home the team title in Class A.

The Muskies had the overall 4th, 5th, 7th, 13th and 20th finishers, besting second place Fort Madison by 14 points.

In Class B, the top-ranked (2A) Danville-New London boys’ absolutely crushed the competition with Alexander Julian placing 1st, Seth Bailey finished second, Rylan Martin 3rd, Oliver Sowell 4th and Allen Bonnesen placed 5th.

Danville-New London had a meet low 15 points, taking down second place Columbus Community by 45.

Winfield-Mount Union finished third, while Mediapolis took fourth.

Central Lee placed sixth as a team.

Julian clocked in at 16:29.2  — a time good enough to win the Class A race.

The junior is squarely inside the top-10 of the latest iteration of the IATC Individual Cross Country rankings.