Prairie High School - Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Johnston wins Prairie volleyball title

The Johnston Dragons captured the top prize at the Prairie Invitational volleyball tournament Saturday.

Johnston and Holy Trinity both finished with 4-1 records in the round-robin tournament, but Johnston won the tiebreaker.

Johnston is ranked No. 2 in Class 5A and Holy Trinity is ranked No. 1 in Class 1A.

The sixth-ranked Prairie Hawks finished 3-2. The Hawks defeated Western Dubuque, West Branch and West Burlington. They lost to Johnston and Holy Trinity.

Kate Busswitz collected 26 kills in the tournament for Prairie. Megan Sprengeler finished with 19 kills.

Mallory Jones contributed 40 assists and was 23-for-23 on serves. Kristin Wahlert had 11 digs and four aces. Rylee Blood and Jenni Lockhart had nine
digs apiece. Rachel Shelangoski had nine kills and Blood had three aces.

Standings

1. Johnston 4-1, 2. Holy Trinity 4-1, 3. Prairie 3-2, 4. West Branch 3-2, 5. Western Dubuque 1-4, 6. West Burlington 0-5.

Akers helps No.1 Warriors top Prairie

Landen Akers had a few problems hanging onto punts Friday night, but he made amends with a huge play on defense.

Akers intercepted a pass near the goal line and raced 99 yards for a touchdown to help No. 1 Washington knock off Prairie, 28-6, at John Wall Field.

Washington led 21-6 with four minutes left in the game, but the Hawks marched to the 5-yard line and could have made it a tight game with a touchdown.

Akers had other ideas.

Prairie quarterback Dakota Simonsen lofted a fourth-down pass toward the end zone, but Akers saw it coming and made a clean interception. Akers is one of the top quarter-milers in the state and nobody was going to catch him once he got going.

"I saw he was throwing a fade route to the corner, so I just waited backand waited for the ball and went up and got it," he said. "It's pretty fun, because I made a few mistakes in the game earlier. I tried to make up for it."

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VanDraska leads Prairie to MVC crown

Cedar Rapids Prairie junior Tysen VanDraska is built to run.

A compact 5-foot-6 and 125 pounds, he has the endurance to run long distances at a fast clip and the speed to finish a 5-kilometer race with a punishing kick that leaves others behind.

VanDraska put his talents to good use Thursday and captured the Mississippi Valley Conference Super Meet on his home course at Prairie in 15 minutes, 59 seconds for a seven-second victory.

The Prairie Hawks edged Linn-Mar and Cedar Falls for the team championship in a tight three-school battle with VanDraska in first place, Matt Lorenz in fifth place and Jake Moore seventh for Prairie.

VanDraska and Linn-Mar senior Daniel Murphy ran stride-for-stride for much of the race and Murphy nudged in front at the 10-minute mark, but VanDraska was too fast for everyone else when they finished on the Prairie track.

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Decker races to MVC title

Linn-Mar junior Amber Decker established herself as one of the top distance runners in Iowa a long time ago, but she stands only 19th in the current state cross country rankings and had not done anything truly special this season.

That changed Thursday.

Decker raced to the front of the pack and posted an impressive wire-to-wire victory at the Mississippi Valley Conference Super Meet in 14 minutes, 32 seconds for the 4K course at Prairie.

Decker thinks she may have been sub-consciously waiting for the bigger races to come around - like the MVC Super Meet and the postseason meets that are on the horizon.

"My parents described it a little bit as teen-age procrastination. I don't know," she said, smiling. "It's been kind of a struggle this year, but I'm glad that I pushed through.

"It was a good race. It was a good time to finally push through and do what I needed to do."

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