Metro Sports Report

Xavier girls top Johnston, 39-34

JOHNSTON - Katlyn Andersen and Emily Walvoord hit key free throws in the final minute Saturday night to help 11th-ranked Xavier clip Johnston, 39-34, in a non-conference basketball game.

Xavier was clinging to a 33-32 lead in the final minute. Andersen and Walvoord both hit a pair of free throws to help the Saints (3-0) escape with the victory.

Walvoord led Xavier with eight points. Annie Dale and Alex Bartz scored seven points apiece. Sarah Dickes had four steals, Dale had three steals and Bartz blocked three shots.

Cedar Valley Christian girls face big challenge

Nobody on the Cedar Valley Christian girls basketball team will be complaining about a lack of playing time this season.

There will be more than enough to go around. Too much, perhaps.

Cedar Valley Christian will begin its first season of competition in the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union Monday night at Lone Tree with an extremely limited roster.

"We've actually got six players, and we have a manager we might have to suit up," CVC Coach Craig Foote reported. "So that's kind of where we're at."

Jacobson leads young J-Hawks into new year

Larry Niemeyer retired as a teacher after the 2010-11 school year, so he has considerably more time on his hands when he's not coaching the Cedar Rapids Jefferson girls basketball team.

"I can watch Matlock every morning," Niemeyer said with a smile. "He did something down on the floor today and couldn't get back up. That's why I don't go down on the floor."

Aside from watching Matlock reruns on TV, Niemeyer is back for his 53rd year as a coach. He's compiled an 861-328 record since 1959 at Adel and Jefferson and said life is "easier" now that he's not spending the entire day at school.

‘El Exigente’ Looks Back - and Ahead

“What strikes me — and I’d call it the tragic view — is how the passage of time sweeps away those who don’t adjust to new attitudes and mores.”

Harvey Sollberger did not play sports at Marion High School. He played music — and went on to international renown as a flutist, conductor, composer and teacher of contemporary classical music.

Sollberger remembers well the legendary high school athletic heroes of his childhood in the 1950s (“as if they were spun out of the Illiad,” he wrote), the importance of sports to the high school and town, and “the puritanical and ascetic philosophy” of Coach Les Hipple, who drove his teams to victory while molding his players’ characters through strict
discipline.