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Boys soccer tournament pairings released

Kennedy, Washington, Xavier and Marion all received byes in the first round of the boys substate tournament pairings released Friday by the Iowa High School Athletic Association.

The substate tournaments in Class 3A and Class 2A start on May 23. Semifinals are May 25 and finals May 28.

Kennedy, Jefferson and Prairie are in Class 3A substate #3. Prairie plays at Waterloo East at 5 p.m. and Jefferson hosts Marshalltown at 6:30 p.m. at Kingston Stadium in first-round games May 23. In the May 25 semifinals, the winner of the Prairie game will play at Cedar Falls and the winner of the Jefferson game will play Kennedy at Kingston Stadium. The substate final is May 28 at Kingston.

Washington and Linn-Mar are in Class 3A substate #4. Linn-Mar hosts Western Dubuque in the first round. The winner of that game will play in the semifinals at Waterloo West. Washington will host the winner of the Dubuque Hempstead/Dubuque Senior game at Kingston Stadium on May 25 at 5 p.m.  The championship game is May 28 at Kingston Stadium at 10 a.m.

Defending state champion Xavier and Marion are in Class 2A substate #3. Xavier will host either DeWitt Central or Anamosa. Marion will host either Maquoketa or Marion. Both games are May 25 at 5 p.m. The championship game is May 28 at Xavier at 12 p.m.

The state tournament is June 2-4 at Cownie Soccer Park in Des Moines.  Eight teams qualify in each of three classes.

Class 3A

Substate #3

Mon., May 23
First Round
Marshalltown vs. CR Jefferson at Kingston Stadium, 6:30 p.m.
CR Prairie at Waterloo East, 5 p.m.

Wed., May 25
Semifinals
Jefferson/Marshalltown winner vs. CR Kennedy at Kingston Stadium, 7 p.m.
Prairie/Waterloo East winner at Cedar Falls, 7 p.m.

Sat., May 28
Finals
Semifinal winners at Kingston Stadium, 12 p.m.

Substate #4

Mon., May 23
First Round
Dubuque Hempstead at Dubuque Senior, 5 p.m.
Western Dubuque at Linn-Mar, 6:30 p.m.

Wed., May 25
Hempstead/Senior winner vs. CR Washington at Kingston Stadium, 5 p.m.
Linn-Mar/Western Dubuque winner at Waterloo West, 5 p.m.

Sat., May 28
Semifinal winners at Kingston Stadium, 10 a.m.

Class 2A

Substate #3

Mon., May 23
First Round
DeWitt Central at Anamosa, 6:30 p.m.
Maquoketa at Mount Vernon, 5 p.m.

Wed., May 25
Semifinals
DeWitt Central/Anamosa winner at CR Xavier, 5 p.m.
Maquoketa/Mount Vernon winner at Marion, 5 p.m.

Sat., May 28
Semifinal winners at Xavier, 12 p.m.

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The editors

Mom, coach, athlete ... and college freshman

In her four years as head coach of the Xavier Saints girls tennis team, Erin Seely was proud that her teams always posted winning seasons.

She's on the other side of the net this spring, so to speak. But, as a 39-year-old freshman on the Cornell College tennis team, she's no less excited that she's holding her own against women young enough to be her daughter.

Well, she did drop her last singles match a week ago, 6-1, 6-0, against a Luther College coed on a blustery day in Decorah.

"Hey," she said good-naturedly afterward, "at least I didn't get hurt."

Win or lose, Erin brings the same spunk to college competition as she does to coaching. Being a full-time wife, mother of two teenage boys and first-year Cornell student, she gave up the Xavier gig this year but still helps Kennedy girls coach and friend Joe Benedict with his team.

"Erin's always the positive one," says doubles partner Wanda Carter, an 18-year-old freshman from Los Angeles. "She's always picking up the other kids. She acts and looks so young, you forget she could be your coach."

Still, when Erin showed up for the first day of practice for the fall tennis season at Cornell, 20-year-old sophomore Kathleen Ellis of Madison, Wis., thought she was a new assistant for head coach Patrick Coute.

"She's like a big sister to the rest of us," says Kathleen. "She's always bringing us treats and presents. And we look up to her and go to her for advice.

"But she's great to be around, too, a great teammate. She's like, 'Hey, let's go practice, let's go hit some balls.' Erin's always upbeat."

When Erin enrolled at Cornell, she put on the admissions form that she was a high school coach and was asked if she had an interest in lending a hand with the varsity squad.

"I played a couple of exhibition matches, and I decided I'd rather be playing than helping with coaching," Erin explains. "I was like number nine in singles, but I was perfectly happy. And I got my varsity letter."

Coach Coute, a Canadian who is three years younger than his oldest freshman, says she brings a welcome dimension to his Rams racketeers.

"She adds some maturity to the team. And she is very, very enthusiastic. She really works at her game and has gotten a lot better since the fall. She loves the challenge. And she's fun to be around," he says.

For her part, Erin says sports are in her blood. She's the daughter of Mike Neilly, the now retired longtime local radio sportscaster and microphone sidekick for the legendary Bob Brooks.

"I grew up at Hawkeye Downs and going to football games on Friday nights at Kingston with my dad. And my grandpa Jack was the scorekeeper at Regis for years. I played on teams with the city recreation department," she says.

Later in life, she also served on the Cedar Rapids Recreation Commission for seven years, including a stint as chairman.

Erin played three years on the Jefferson tennis team for Coach Jim Lockett before transferring to LaSalle and graduating in 1990. Back then, Erin put off college to marry and raise a family.

Husband James Seely works at Intermec Technologies (and as a volunteer firefighter). Their sons are A.J., 17, a junior at Jeff, and Carter, 14, an eighth-grader at Taft.

Erin has been around schools and athletics all of her adult life. For 13 years at Jefferson and one at Taft, she's been a para-professional assistant with special education students.

She served as the assistant girls tennis coach at Jeff for six years before moving up to the head job at Xavier in 2007. She also was a volunteer coach for Jefferson basketball icon Larry Niemeyer, is a timer at Kingston Stadium track meets and for many years has served as a jack-of-all-trades at Jeff basketball and football games.

For her longtime service at the school, she was awarded an honorary diploma.

On the side, Erin also has turned a jewelry-making hobby into a cottage profession (glassdesignsbyerin) and sells her fancy wares at area farmers' markets.

Starting college, she says, was something she's long wanted to do, so Cornell's one-course-at-a-time system fits her family-friendly schedule. She plans to earn a degree in physical education, with a goal of becoming an athletic administrator.

Now that college finals and tennis are wrapped up for the year, she can devote more time to the Kennedy girls. And finding some spare time on her hands, Erin's taken a summer job in the clubhouse and driving the beverage cart at the Wildcat golf course in Shellsburg.

"I'm kind of a flighty person, high-strung and all over the place," says the petite blonde bundle of energy. "But I do like to keep busy."

Dispatches from the Polderland - Part 6

The road home

After riding past fields and fields of flowers early in our bike trip, on Friday our tour came full circle when we visited the famous Aalsmeer Flower Market, an astounding place where millions of flowers are brought to be inspected and auctioned off to buyers from all over the world every day of the year.

The flower showrooms stretch almost out of sight, with small trains made of carts full of flowers racing in every direction. Meanwhile, in a huge tiered room with about 400 computer stations, bidders watch intently and punch in their orders as flower samples are wheeled in and information about each lot is displayed on huge screens. I couldn’t help but be struck by the importance of flowers to the Dutch economy – and to people everywhere who crave their beauty enough to buy them.

Saturday the 18 members of our biking group said our good-byes a bit regretfully and headed in our separate directions – some home, some on to other destinations. Daryl and I wheeled our suitcases to the Amsterdam Centraal Station and boarded the train for Brussels, about a two-and-a-half hour trip. Here we’re staying in a small, older hotel called La Legende, on Rue du Lombard. Our room with double bed, compact by U.S. hotel standards, seems gigantic compared to the boat cabins.

We’re near the Gare Centrale and the Grand Place, with its amazing ring of Gothic architecture, and the streets are all a medieval jumble, thick with 21st-century tourists. Every nearby street and alley is full of sidewalk cafes, and the cafes full of people. One whole area seems dedicated to Moules (mussels) and Frites places, with pails full of empty shells at every table. This is considered the unofficial national dish of Belgium, but I’m sticking with the other standards – beer and chocolates.

As lively and interesting as Brussels is, it’s hard not to miss the bikes and the bike culture of Holland. On the train today I was thinking about our week of touring Holland on two wheels – and my friend Jan’s parting words to me: “May you find the renewal that comes on the seat of a bicycle.” After participating in dozens of bike trips, this is the first one where I wasn’t riding my own skinny-tired, dropped-handle bar road bike, but rather an upright touring bike with wide seat and handle bars. It glided easily over all terrains, coasting nicely even on the flats, and at our easy pace I was able to spend a lot of time soaking in the countryside dotted with windmills and the small towns with their lovely old houses and ubiquitous canals.

Spending a week mostly outdoors always revives my spirit, and seeing another country and another culture up close heightens my awareness of the richness that awaits us everywhere if we’re living with our eyes (and our minds) wide open – seeing everything, as Gramma Mary said, as if for the first or last time.