Metro Sports Report

Warriors run out of miracles

One by one, most of them crying, the seniors on the Cedar Rapids Washington football squad hugged their younger teammates after the game at Kingston Stadium Friday night.

Coach Tony Lombardi waited for each of them at the end of the line, greeting each player with a firm, lingering embrace and soft words of consolation.

"Good job. You played well. I love you," he said, one after another.

Washington's remarkable season ended with tears in the quarterfinals of the Class 4A playoffs. Disappointed Warriors were still mingling on the field 45 minutes after it ended.

Barkley Hill killed them. So did two turnovers.

Hill broke loose for 231 yards and five touchdowns as No. 6 Cedar Falls stopped the Warriors, 35-32, in a memorable contest on a cool night in November.

Too much Hill for Warriors to climb

Barkley Hill was unstoppable when it counted Friday night at Kingston Stadium.

Hill scored five touchdowns on runs of 14, 1, 19, 33 and 50 yards and gained 231 yards to power No. 6 Cedar Falls past Washington, 35-32, in a Class 4A playoff football quarterfinal.

Four of Hill's touchdown came in the second half, after the Warriors had built a 17-7 lead on Ryan Cain's 91-yard kickoff return to open the third quarter.

The most amazing run was the 19-yard pinball job that cut the Warriors' lead to 24-21 with 1 minute left in the third quarter. It started a 21-point Cedar Falls onslaught that was aided by a pair of Washington turnovers.

Wagner 7th, Clark 12th at state diving

MARSHALLTOWN -- Linn-Mar senior Sam Wagner finished seventh and Adelia Clark 12th in the state diving competition Friday night at the Marshalltown YMCA.

Linn-Mar is tied with Decorah for third place with 17 points apiece.

Ames freshman Maggie James won the diving and senior teammate Sarah Kemp was second.

West Des Moines Valley divers Julie Dickinson, Ashlyn Clingman and Morgan Rafferty finished 3-5-6 to give the Tigers a six-point lead over second-place Ames heading into Saturday's swimming competition, which starts at noon.

Linn-Mar qualified three divers to the state meet. Freshman Alyssa Deuso failed to advance beyond the preliminary round.

The seventh-place finish was the best for Wagner in four years of qualifying for the state meet. She finished ninth as a junior, 14th as a sophomore and 11th as a freshman.

MVC saved as football league; no 4A districts for eastern teams

The Mississippi Valley Conference will live to celebrate its 81st birthday as a football league next year.

The MVC was saved as a football league Thursday when adminstrators from all Class 4A football schools met with IHSAA officials at a special meeting in Boone.

The move toward Class 4A district football was stopped, at least in the eastern half of the state that includes the Mississippi Valley Conference and the Mississippi Athletic Conference.

"The east schools are not going to see any change," Rick Wulkow, the executive director of the IHSAA, told the Metro Sports Report in a telephone interview. "The Mississippi Valley Conference will be doing their own scheduling."