Area players to watch for the 2013 softball season:P Kelsey Lough, sr., Jesup – 30-7, 0.87 ERA. 261 K, 34 BB in 218 IP. Batted .356. Class 2A 1st-team all-state.P Hannah Cole, jr., West Delaware – 27-8, 1.82 ERA. 186 K, 75 BB in 223 ...

 DES MOINES -- Her team's success has kept the state's top individual honor at the back burner of Ally Disterhoft's mind.But, yeah, Ally Disterhoft admitted, the thought of becoming Miss Iowa Basketball 2013, it was there."I'd thought about it a bit," said the Iowa City ...

WAUKON -- In hindsight, it probably was meant to happen like this.On his home court. Against his hometown.Gene Klinge earned his 1,000th career win as a girls' basketball coach Thursday night; Class 3A 15th-ranked Waukon got 60 points from Daneshia Snitker and Alyssa Collins in ...

NEW HAMPTON -- History will have to wait.Maybe a day. Maybe a little longer.Class 4A 15th-ranked New Hampton denied Gene Klinge his 1,000th career win, closing with a 13-2 run and edging No. 12 Waukon, 54-51, in a Northeast Iowa Conference girls' basketball game Friday ...

If Gene Klinge reaches his latest coaching frontier this week, he certainly will have earned it."This is kind of the week from hell for us," said Klinge, the girls basketball coach at Waukon High School.Klinge, 76, needs one more win to become the first coach ...

WAUKON -- A single chair sits along the baseline of the Waukon High School gymnasium during an early-morning holiday-break girls' basketball practice.Gene Klinge can't sit still in it, but doesn't wander far from it."I can't explain it," Klinge said. "I just can't stand up for ...

Cedar Rapids Kennedy played its first girls basketball game of the Tony Vis era with heavy hearts.And big hearts.The Cougars rallied from a seven-point halftime deficit to defeat Cedar Falls, 51-35, in their opener Tuesday. To beat a quality Mississippi Valley Conference on the road ...

 FORT DODGE -- The Solon Spartans generally don't require much assistance.They got it Monday, though, and the result was predictably lopsided.The top-ranked Spartans were beneficiaries of six Waukon errors and handled the Indians, 8-2, in a Class 3A quarterfinal at the state softball tournament at ...

WAUKON -- More than seven years after her death, Chantel Snitker still has her sister's back.A white sign of memoriam, in the shape of a softball, is fastened to the center field fence of the Waukon High School diamond. Ironically, yet fittingly, Daneshia Snitker spends most of ...

This story was written by Jeff Linder and was published in The Gazette on June 28, 2005:WAUKON -- Chantel Snitker took a softball to her grave.It was signed by her teammates and placed in her casket at the funeral home. It carried a message:"Now we play ...