Sports, Monday, April 13th

By: Nathan Bloechl — sports@kilj.com 

New Baseball, Softball Dates Announced:

The Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union and Iowa High School Athletic Association have announced new first practice dates for the summer softball and baseball seasons.

First practices will now May 18th.

First competition then, will be June 1st.

Postseason play and state tournament dates are unchanged.

Regional dates for softball are July 6th through the 14th with the state tournament July 20th through the 24th.

For baseball, district and sub-state tournament games are from July 9th through the 22nd with the state tournament July 24th through August 1st.

Also of note, the new start date for softball and baseball pitching and catching is May 1st with a period of 10 days of batting practice allotted between May 1st and the date of first practices on May 18th.

Iowa State AD: “Losing Football Would Be Catastrophic”:

College athletic departments took a major financial hit with the cancellation of the NCAA basketball tournament.

The loss of the football season would be catastrophic. Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard slashed coaches’ salaries and bonuses after his department lost five million dollars of tournament revenue.

As the economic driving force Pollard says they can ill afford the loss of football.

There’s nobody in our industry right now that can reasonably forecast a contingency plan that would have them playing zero football games” Pollard explained.

Pollard says flexible options are already being discussed for football.

Leaders are now modeling different ways for football to start. We are looking at starting in October and playing just conference games. Do we start in spring? Three-to-four weeks from now we’ll have a much clearer view of how the fall will look for football.”

The Cyclones are coming off a season that saw them go 7-6 after a bowl loss to Notre Dame.

Tentatively, they’ll open up on September 5th at home against South Dakota.

Drake Lands Houston Prep Wing:

The Drake men’s basketball team received great recruiting news yesterday when Houston area prep Bryceson Burns announced his intentions to commit to the school.

Burns, a 6’6 forward, was originally a 2019 prospect but opted for a prep year, where he honed his skills at the Winston School in San Antonio.

One year ago at this time, Burns held just one offer: NAIA’s William Penn out of Oskaloosa.

Now, he’s heading to Des Moines.

Burns selected Drake over Illinois-Chicago and the University of New Orleans.

He joins Chicago land prep Jordan Kwiecinski in Drake’s 2020 recruiting class.