High School Football
Mt. Pleasant will stay on the road to compete against Mt. Vernon on Friday, September 27th, at 7:15 pm. KILJ 105.5 FM, kilj.com, will be on the call with the pregame show at 7 pm. Head coach John Bowlin wants to get back to fundamentals heading into this week’s matchup,
“We just gotta move on. We gotta get better. That’s number one, we’re going to go watch the people, they got to watch themselves. I mean, we watch it every day, but they really need to break down how they played and play by play, you know, look at their eyes, look at their footwork, just are they going to the right spots mentally. And that’s the biggest thing is we got to execute, and our special teams got to get better. So, you know two weeks in a row we’ve given up big kick returns, so we gotta find it. We got to find a difference there to make a difference in the game. You can’t give up a big play like that and expect to bounce back right away from that.”
Columbus will attempt to right the ship at home on Friday against Highland with kickoff set for 7 pm.
Mediapolis will square off against West Burlington/Notre Dame at home on Friday at 7:30 pm.
Fairfield starts their district play against Benton on Friday at 7 pm at home.
Danville will host Wapello on Friday at 7 pm.
WACO will travel to Easton Valley on Friday at 7 pm.
Winfield-Mt. Union will hit the road to take on English Valleys at 7 pm on Friday.
New London will look to pick up their first win of the season on Friday at home against HLV with kickoff at 7 pm.
Central Lee will look to stay undefeated for the season against Albia on Friday at 7:30 pm at home.
High School Volleyball
#4 Holy Trinity Catholic hosted their classic last night with Central Lee, Danville, Mediapolis, and Wapello also competing. Starting with the hosts, the Crusaders dispatched their opponents without dropping a set, ending in a sweep of Burlington (21-17, 21-18) in the championship match. The Crusaders took down Danville (21-19, 21-19), Keokuk (21-7, 21-13), and Fort Madison (21-7, 21-9) in straight sets in pool play. The tandem of Presley Myers and Adalyn Kruse each finished with 26 kills.
Central Lee collected a 3-1 record with a sweep of Danville (21-13, 22-20) in the third place match and two three-set wins over Wapello (21-15, 17-21, 15-8) and Mediapolis (18-21, 22-20, 15-13), while falling to Burlington in straight sets (9-21, 17-21) in pool play. Kenna Sandoval and Taylor Jones each stuffed the stat sheet; Sandoval collected 76 assists, four aces, and 11 blocks, while Jones tabbed 36 kills and 11 blocks.
Danville fell to Keokuk in a narrow third-set final (17-21, 21-12, 14-16), but defeated Fort Madison in a sweep (21-15, 21-18).
The Southeast Iowa Super Conference (SEISC) will be back in action for their tournament pool play on Thursday, September 26th.
Mt. Pleasant will travel to Washington tonight at 7:15 pm.
Fairfield squares off against Fort Madison tonight at 7:15 pm at home.
High School Cross Country
Mt. Pleasant’s girls’ coach Lyle Murray urges the community to come out and support the Panthers when they host the Mt. Pleasant Invitational at the high school today at 4:30 pm. Central Lee, Columbus, Danville, Fairfield, Holy Trinity Catholic, New London, Mediapolis, WACO, and Winfield-Mt. Union will also be participating.
Van Buren County and Wapello will travel to Burlington to compete on Thursday, September 26th.
High School Cross Country Rankings
The Iowa Track Coaches Association released their newest edition of the individual rankings and eight local athletes managed to make the top 30 in their respective classes.
In Class 3A, Washington made their reappearance in both the boys’ and girls’ rankings with Tyler Alderton reentering at #26 and Iris Dahl being locked at #20. Alderton and Dahl each claimed 1st place in their respective races at the Timm Lamb Invitational last week.
Mediapolis’ Will Schmidgall climbed up two spots in the Class 2A rankings to sit at #11 for the week. Schmidgall clocked in a time of 16 minutes and 36 seconds at the Timm Lamb Invitational, which was good enough for 2nd place.
In the competitive boys’ Class 1A rankings, Jackson Shacklett of Danville, who collected his third individual gold of the season last week, headlined the list at #7, the same spot as last week.
Van Buren County’s Lincoln Bainbridge fell four spots down to #10, Ty Muniz of Columbus hurdled several runners to be ranked #24, and Jude Dykstra of WACO entered the rankings at #27.
Lastly, Danville’s Alaina Gourley leapfrogged eight spots to be ranked #21 in this week’s rankings. Gourley finished in 1st place at the Timm Lamb Invitational with a time of 20 minutes and 18 seconds.
Southeast Iowa Playbook
Tune in to KILJ 105.5 FM, kilj.com, tomorrow, September 25th, at 6 pm for a new episode of the Southeast Iowa Playbook with WACO set to be our school of focus.
Southeastern Community College
The volleyball team will be back in action tonight at 6:30 pm on the road against Kirkwood Community College.
College Football
#18 Iowa State will start Big 12 play on Saturday, September 28th, at 6 pm against Houston. KILJ 98.5 FM and AM 1130 will have the broadcast.
Iowa is on their bye week.
College Football Awards
Kaleb Johnson was named Big Ten Co-Offensive Player of the Week after rushing for 206 yards and three touchdowns in the Hawkeyes’ 31-14 win over Minnesota. Johnson is the first Hawkeye to rush for over 100 yards in four straight games since Mark Weisman in 2012.
This Day in Sports History
1920 – Babe Ruth becomes the first player to hit 50 home runs in a season.
1929 – New York Yankee pitcher Tom Zachary ends the season 12-0, the record for the most pitching wins without a loss in one season.
1977 – Ken Hinton of the CFL British Columbia Lions returns a punt 130 yards, a record that still stands.