Cedar Valley Christian - Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Cedar Valley blanked in 1st soccer match

The Cedar Valley Christian soccer team was shut out by Mid-Prairie, 3-0, in its first match as a member of the Iowa High School Athletic Association Thursday at the Tuma Soccer Complex.

The Huskies were missing four starters due to spring break.

"It was a good first showing," said Coach Adam Conn.

Austin Errthum scored two goals for Mid-Prairie and Riley Sieren had the other. Mid-Prairie goal keeper Chase Murray had to stop only three shots.

Will Muhlbach made 18 saves for Cedar Valley. The Huskies have five girls on their 21-person roster. The school does not have a girls soccer team.

Cedar Valley Christian adds baseball

The Cedar Valley Christian Huskies plan to field a varsity baseball team for the first time this summer and compete in the IHSAA postseason tournament.

Cedar Valley has 15 dates on its schedule so far and plans to add more games in the coming weeks, according to Stephanie Hodge, the school's athletic director.

The Huskies could play some of their home games at Daniels Park in Cedar Rapids.

Practice begins on April 30 and the first competition could begin on May 21, against an opponent to be determined.

Cedar Valley joined the IHSAA and the IGHSAU for the first time this season. The Huskies have competed in eight-man football, boys basketball and girls basketball so far. The school will have a boys soccer team this spring, with some girls on the roster.

Here is the tentative baseball schedule so far:

May 25 - Lisbon, 5:30 p.m.
May 29 - at Springville
June 1 - East Buchanan (2), 4 p.m.
June 2 - NU High
June 5 - Marquette, 3
June 8 - at Prince of Peace (2), 3 p.m.
June 9 - at Montezuma (2), 3 p.m.
June 12 - at Meskwaki
June 14 - at Brooklyn BGM, 6
June 19 - at Bellevue Marquette, 3
June 22 - Prince of Peace, 5 p.m.
June 25 - Brooklyn BGM
June 28 - at Dunkerton, 5
July 2 - at Alburnett (2)
July 5 - at Calamus Wheatland, 5:30 p.m.

New gym on the drawing board at CVC

After their first season of basketball competition against schools from the Iowa athletic associations, the Cedar Valley Christian boys and girls teams found out they could hold their own on the court.

They also found out their court itself couldn’t hold enough fans. And it isn’t big enough.

As a result, planning is underway to build a new gym at the small private Christian school in southeast Cedar Rapids.

School principal and boys basketball coach Jeff Pospisil said fund raising will begin soon for a proposed $2 million facility.

The hope is to have it built before next season.

If that doesn’t work out, Pospisil said the school will look to rent other gym facilities next year for its home games.

Cedar Valley’s gymnasium also serves as the school’s cafeteria. It seats about 200 fans on a set of bleachers on one side of the court and has very little space between the court and the walls. Also, the playing surface itself is just 74-foot long, 10 feet less than regulation high school gyms.

Because of its tight quarters, Pospisil said it was difficult to schedule teams for home games. There were only two this year, both against equally small Christian schools that Cedar Valley had played previously.

“We made the schedule work this year,”Pospisil said. “But it wasn’t ideal to play 19 games on the road.”

The boys and girls teams each won both contests on their own floor.

In their first year against bigger schools, the boys team finished 13-10 while the girls were 4-18.  When the boys team qualified for a home game in postseason play, it had to be moved to Marion High School to meet tournament guidelines.

Now that Cedar Valley has a year of experience as a full-fledged member of Iowa High School Athletic Association, Pospisil said a new gym has become a priority.

“When we added 10 classrooms to the school several years ago, that was to be phase one of a building project and a gym was phase two,” Pospsil said. “Then we had the flood of 2008 and a downturn in the economy, so the gym was put on hold. We think now is the time to put it back on the table.”

So far, Cedar Valley has tentatively scheduled nine home games next year for its 21-game schedule.  Whether they will be played in a new gym with seating for at least 500 or in other facilities depends on the success of fund-raising.

Pospisil said the proposed building would be on school grounds north of the current gym and that there would be additional paved parking.

“With our success this year, it confirmed we made the right decision by joining the Iowa association,” Pospisil said. "So this is the next logical step.”

Cedar Valley 1 step closer to conference membership

Cedar Valley Christian may have finally found a home in the Tri-Rivers Conference, Iowa Prep Sports is reporting.

A mediation team meeting Tuesday in Monticello developed a plan that will recommend to the Iowa Department of Education that Cedar Valley Christian be assigned to the Tri-Rivers Conference. The school was turned down for admission to the Tri-Rivers Conference by its membership last month.

Cedar Valley Christian began play in the Iowa School Athletic Association (IHSAA) and Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union (IGHSAU) in the fall of 2011.

The mediation team made many recommendations to remedy the problem of conference affiliation for smaller schools in Eastern Iowa. Two members of the team were IGHSAU Executive Director Mike Dick and David Anderson, assistant director of the IHSAA.

Realignment included schools from the Big East, Cedar Valley, Tri-Rivers and Wamac Conferences. It was recommended that the Big East be abolished and a new, as yet unnamed conference, be established.

Part of the conference realignment includes downsizing the Wamac, of which Marion is a member, from 14 to 13 schools. Anamosa will be reassigned to the new conference.

Realignment would take effect in the 2013-14 school year.

The Iowa Department of Education will hold a hearing on the recommendations. The likely date is March 28.