Pending approval from the school’s board of directors, veteran girls’ basketball coach Harold Shepherd will take the reins at West Delaware High School next season.
Bob Murphy, the school’s athletics director, said neither he nor Shepherd could comment on the position until the board votes next Monday.
Shepherd has 43 years of head-coaching experience, most of them at Vinton and Vinton-Shellsburg, where he won state titles in 1984 (six-player) and 1995 (Class 3A). He resigned at Vinton-Shellsburg in 2005, then coached two seasons at Jesup.
He has a career record of 722-275 and …

Marion’s Brittany Fish and JoAnna Forkner will sign national letters of intent Wednesday.
Forkner will play volleyball at Kirkwood Community College; Fish will play basketball at Maryville University (St. Louis).
The signings will be at 3 p.m. and 3:15 p.m.
Forkner was a part of Marion’s state-championship team in 2008. Fish helped lead the Indians to two state-tournament appearances in basketball.

Cedar Rapids Kennedy and Cedar Falls were Mississippi Valley Conference divisional winners for sportsmanship in the winter season of 2009-10.
The award encompasses wrestling and boys’ and girls’ basketball.

DeWitt Central High School junior Jennifer Keitel has verbally committed to play basketball at the University of Northern Iowa, accepting Tonya Warren’s scholarship offer to join the Panthers in the fall of 2011.
A three-year starter at Central, Keitel picked UNI over Creighton, Northern Illinois and Illinois-Chicago.
“I chose UNI for a variety of reasons. It’s a great basketball program. I felt an immediate connection to Coach Warren and the whole staff,” she said. “(UNI) has a great academic reputation, the campus is a perfect size for me and it’s relatively close …

CEDAR RAPIDS — Remember the last time Morgan Paige and Carli Tritz were on the same floor at the same time?
Both stars put on a show of brilliance in Sioux City Heelan’s 69-61 Class 3A quarterfinal win over Marion at the girls’ state basketball tournament last month.
They’ll be together again Saturday, on different terms.
Teammate terms.
The annual six-game Iowa Girls Coaches Association all-star series is this weekend at the Hennessey Recreation Center on the Mount Mercy College campus.
More than 100 of the state’s best seniors will gather. Tritz and Paige are …

Mount Mercy College will host the Iowa Girls Coaches Association Senior Basketball Classic, the annual six-game all-star series, this weekend.
The schedule:
Saturday, April 10
12:30 p.m. — 3A White vs. 3A Gray
2:15 p.m. — 3A Select vs. 4A Select
4 p.m. — 4A White vs. 4A Gray
Sunday, April 11
1 p.m. — 1A White vs. 1A Gray
2:45 p.m. — 1A Select vs. 2A Select
4:30 p.m. — 2A White vs. 2A Gray
The rosters:
1A Select — Joscelyn Coleman (Essex), Lindsay Hoehns (Twin Cedars), Rebekah Rolling (North Sentral Kossuth), Bobbi Boomgarden (North Butler), Kate Hartman (Northwood-Kensett), Shentel Lehmann (Valley …

MARION — Brian O’Donnell has done the rebuilding thing before. So this ought to seem mild.
O’Donnell, who led the Springville High School girls’ basketball program from obscurity to two trips to the state finals, has been hired as the coach at Marion.
Corby Laube, athletics director at Marion, announced the hiring Thursday night.
“We are very excited to have Coach O’Donnell as our new coach,” Laube said in a statement. ”His coaching accomplishments are outstanding, but we were even more impressed with the type of person he is.  He is a coach of …

MARION — In reality, Linn-Mar was an undefeated state champion. In virtuality, the Lions got a tough draw nationally, and a first-round exit.
The Lions were a No. 16 seed in the Midwest Region of the Massey Virtual National Championship girls’ basketball tournament. The simulated event began today, and Linn-Mar fell 48-43 to Indianapolis Ben Davis.
Led by fourth-team Parade all-American Kiah Stokes, Linn-Mar claimed the Class 4A state championship earlier this month and finished 26-0.
Using the same algorithm that powers the BCS National Championship, HighSchoolSports.net will simulate a virtual national tournament to …

MOUNT VERNON — This year, Bob Kintzel didn’t rush.
A week behind in practice in November, Kintzel didn’t try to make it up all at once.
“The last two years, because our kids had (advanced to the state volleyball finals), what I had done was rush too much,” said Kintzel, the girls’ basketball coach at Mount Vernon High School.
“This year, I took the approach of taking it a little slower, throw smaller details at them.”
The patience paid off. Oh, did it pay off.
The Mustangs closed with a rush, winning their final 12 …

MARION — Two weeks later, Kiah Stokes still is coming out of the clouds.
“I’m still kind of on a high,” she said.
Stokes led Linn-Mar to a 26-0 record and a Class 4A girls’ state basketball championship. She earned the Gatorade state-player-of-the-year award.
Today, she is honored as the Gazette/KCRG player of the year.
What’s next? Plenty.
A member of the USA Basketball 16-and-under national team last year, Stokes will try out for the 17-and-under team in June. If she makes the team, she’ll play in the world tournament in France.
And she has a …