Metro Sports Report

Kirkwood drubs DuPage in twinbill

MINNEAPOLIS - The Kirkwood Community College baseball team opened the Todd Rima era with a bang Monday night.

The Eagles swept the College of DuPage, 9-0 and 10-1, in a doubleheader at the Metrodome in Minnesota.

Wilfredo Feliz, Jean Carlos Rodriguez and Dairo Gonzalez combined to hit 15 for 21 with nine RBIs and eight runs scored at the top of the batting order.

Muhlbach's return sparked Huskies

SHELLSBURG - Will Muhlbach's right knee was bothering him when the basketball season began, so the 6-foot-5 senior decided to skip his final season at Cedar Valley Christian and support his teammates from the stands instead.

It hurt almost as much to sit and watch his lifelong friends playing ball without him.

"I went to one of the games and we weren't 100 percent, so it was kind of hard to watch that," he said Monday night. "So once my knee got better I decided I would go out."

That was in mid-December, and the Huskies have been riding high ever since.

Jeff booster donations crack $2 million mark

A major milestone will be marked at halftime of Tuesday night’s Jefferson boys basketball game when the Jefferson Athletic Booster Club formally presents its latest donation.

The $55,000 check will put the contribution of the club to the high school athletic fund to more than $2 million since the volunteer organization was formed by parents in the 1957-58 school year.

“It’s $2,013,834.54 to be exact,” said Mark Fiala, a longtime member of the J-Hawk booster club and president for the past 10 years.  “It’s amazing how much money can be made by selling a candy bar or a bag of popcorn one item at a time.”

Ex-Lady Lightning lighting up the Metro

First-year Kennedy girls basketball coach Tony Vis, who is new to the community, first caught wind of it at a preseason jamboree at Jefferson High School.

“It was hilarious,” he says. “We played the first game, then our players stuck around all night to watch.” They were cheering for players on the Prairie and Washington teams, sitting with them, chatting away like family.

To hear them tell it, that’s what they are — seven girls who grew up together playing basketball for the formidable Lady Lightning AAU team from third through eighth grades. Today they are all high school juniors making a significant impact — six as starters — on their respective high school teams.