State News

Sweeney excited about Cubs and new baby

Ryan Sweeney is a proud new father with a new two-year contract with the Chicago Cubs and a chance to jump-start his injury plagued baseball career.

Myer Joseph Sweeney was born five weeks ago on Jan. 2, arriving three weeks earlier than expected for Ryan and his wife Tasha.

"I haven't been getting much sleep. It's brutal," Sweeney said happily Thursday. "It worked out, because I'll get to spend some time with him before I leave."

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Saints get cold shoulder from Metro foes

None of the Class 4A football teams in the Metro area want to play the Xavier Saints next season.

Not Washington, not Jefferson, not Linn-Mar, not Prairie. And not even Kennedy, which is just a long punt from Xavier High School on 42nd Street Northeast.

That's the word from Mike Winker, the athletic director at Xavier, and confirmed by several athletic directors at other Metro schools.

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Metro football teams put in districts

The suspense ended at high noon Thursday when the Iowa High School Athletic Association announced the new district football assignments for the 2014 and 2015 campaigns.

The Xavier Saints, who are dropping from Class 4A to Class 3A next season, were placed in Class 3A District #4 with the Marion Indians, DeWitt Central, Western Dubuque, Maquoketa, Solon and Dubuque Wahlert.

Kennedy, Jefferson and Linn-Mar were assigned to Class 4A District #5 with Cedar Falls, Waterloo East and Waterloo West. All six of those teams are from the Mississippi Valley Conference.

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IHSAA rejects changes to football playoffs

BOONE - During its monthly board meeting Wednesday morning, the Iowa High School Athletic Association struck down two measures that would have brought widespread changes to the prep football playoffs.

Much of the original playoff structure will remain intact, as far as the number of qualifying teams and the traditional Wednesday-Monday-Friday structure for the first three rounds. Teams across the state will continue to play a nine-game regular season schedule.

"The (Iowa Football Coaches Association) brought this to us in December," said Tom Keating, Chairman of the IHSAA Board of Control and Cedar Rapids Xavier principal. "We considered it very seriously because they're right in the middle of it. We didn't feel in December we had enough information to make a decision and that's why we went out and sought input from people in our areas.

"The input helped us in making this decision. It appears that this is something we're not ready to accept at this time," he said. "We need some more study, and can perhaps do that in this two-year cycle with district football."

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