(Lead to 1A regional advance … entire story is at iowaprepsports.com and in Thursday’s Gazette)
Top-ranked. Defending state champions. The bull’s-eye. All that stuff.
For the Springville Orioles, it’s a burden of pleasure.
“I told our kids to enjoy this,” said Springville Coach Brian O’Donnell. “This is a pretty special thing. We’re lucky to be in this situation. It may never happen here again.”
The Orioles (20-1) have won 24 consecutive games against 1A competition — the last defeat was a 2007 regional-final loss to Andrew.
They claimed the 1A state championship last year, and begin …

Read full article

2008 Class 2A State Duals Championship at the U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids. (Jonathan D. Woods/The Gazette)

State Dual Pairings have been released for Class 1A and 2A. The State Dual Wrestling Tournament will be held Saturday, Feb. 28 at the U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids.
The Class 1A field is nearly half full of fresh faces. Manson-NW Webster (21-4), Pleasantville (23-3) and Coon Rapids-Bayard (28-3) are all making their first state duals appearance. Manson faced the toughest challenge to qualify for the eight-team field, avenging an earlier …

By Jeff Dahn

There will be no advance ticket sales for Tuesday’s much anticipated Mississippi Valley Conference game between Class 4A co-No.2 ranked Linn-Mar and Cedar Rapids Kennedy at Kennedy, school officials have announced. The gym at Kennedy seats around 2,100 fans but it still might be a good idea to arrive early. Tickets go on sale at 5 p.m.
Kennedy (18-0) and Linn-Mar (17-1) both wrapped up MVC division titles Tuesday. Kennedy (13-0 in league play) clinched the Mississippi Division title outright with its win over Waterloo West and with City High …

(LEAD OF WEDNESDAY’S STORY … Rest can be found on iowaprepsports.com or in Wednesday’s Gazette)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Considering the circumstances, the Linn-Mar girls’ basketball team spent a long time in the locker room last night before exiting.

It was another textbook triumph, 71-47, at Cedar Rapids Jefferson for the unbeaten, Class 4A top-ranked Lions. But the focus now is the little things.
And March.
“We talked about a lot of things,” said Lions Coach Mike Brandt. “We can’t be satisfied. We want to do the right thing on each possession. We discussed the …

Read full article
DES MOINES, Iowa – The 2009 Iowa high school girl’s basketball tournament trail begins on Thursday across the state in Class 1A.  Springville is the defending state champion and will open up with a home…
Source: Iowa Sports Connection

Read full article
DES MOINES, Iowa – The 2009 Iowa high school girl’s basketball tournament trail for Class 2A gets started on Saturday, February 14th across the state.  There will be a new champion crowned this year in the…
Source: Iowa Sports Connection