By Bob Bakken
MaxPreps.com
Snow Halts Winter Schedule in Northeast Iowa
In the Upper Midwest, winter events, activities and travels many times carry the qualifier: "weather permitting."
The December athletic schedules for many Iowa high schools was ravaged by an unusual amount of snow and that has caused athletic directors to make last-minute decisions about hosting events, and then searching schedules and making phone calls to try and re-schedule events that were postponed to keep student-athletes from having to travel in potentially dangerous conditions.
In northeast Iowa, nearly 300 events already this winter season have been postponed through the month of December. That's compared to less than 200 for the entire season last year.
It's putting pressure on athletic directors to find time to re-schedule events, especially since state tournaments in all sports have been moved up a week due to scheduling conflicts with facilities in Des Moines, such as the Wells Fargo Arena. Athletic budgets have also taken a hit, with Cedar Falls a significant example. The school annually hosts its Keith Young Invitational wrestling tournament, but it was cancelled by snowy weather Dec. 1.
Tigers' coach Jay Llewellyn told the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier that its booster club may have lost up to $4,000 by not holding the tournament. He estimates the school may have lost up to $10,000 in gate receipts. He added with a laugh, "We made t-shirts for the Keith Young and spent almost $2,000, and now we've got $2,000 worth of t-shirts that are no good."
Wrestling: Clarinda Claims Griswold Title
Clarinda came away with nine individual champions in the Griswold Invitational tournament, earning 270.5 points to win the team title. Corning claimed second place in the tournament with 140 points. The Cardinals were led by 125 pound Nick Card, who won all three of his matches by fall, as did Colby Pederson at 140 pounds, Trevor Shane at 145 pounds, and Michael Mellencamp at 275 pounds.
Wrestling: Assumption Program Makes Major Turnaround
One of the bigger turnarounds in high school wrestling this season is happening in Davenport at Assumption High School.
Last year, the Knights were 0-8 in Mississippi Athletic Conference meets and last at the conference tournament. This year, Assumption is 10-0 overall and 2-0 in conference meets entering a conference dual against Bettendorf, which is 7-2 overall and 4-0 in MAC meets.
While the turnaround is turning heads around the conference and around the state, Assumption coach Pete Bush tells the Quad City Times newspaper it's the effort he is looking for.
"There's a simple equation to wrestling - if you work hard, you will be successful. I don't get caught up in the wins and losses. I get caught up in the effort. Effort leads to a lot of wins."
When Assumption meets Bettendorf, Bush will be coaching against a former roommate at the University of Iowa. Bush and Bettendorf coach Mark Trizzino were All-Americans under legendary coach Dan Gable in the late 1970's.
Girls Basketball: Denison-Schleswig Wins Nine Straight
Denison-Schleswig's girls basketball team has now won nine-straight games, after a 50-45 victory over Glenwood at Denison on Friday, Jan. 4.
D-S is also unbeaten in six Hawkeye-10 Conference games and is No. 11 in Class 3-A. Amanda Eller led the Lady Monarchs with 19 points, including four three-pointers. However, Coach Don Lyons told the Denison Bulletin-Review newspaper that bench points were huge in the win.
"Both (Danielle) Ullrich and (Kayla) Krohnke gave us some quality minutes off the bench. It's big when you can get 11 points off the bench, so that was a real plus for us."
Ullrich scored six for the Lady Monarchs and Krohnke added five.
Basketball: Water Break Washes Away M-M-C Home Games
A broken water pipe caused enough damage to the Marcus-Meriden-Cleghorn High School gymnasium floor that the school's remaining basketball games will have to be played elsewhere.
The break occurred over the Christmas holiday hiatus and caused over 100,000 gallons of water to flow through the facility. While M-M-C works to repair the damage, two neighboring schools have stepped up to assist. Remsen-Union and South O'Brien in Paullina offered their gymnasiums and M-M-C will play their remaining games on its rivals' home floors.
The situation has resulted in a good lesson in cooperation for students and adults of all three schools. M-M-C boys' basketball coach Al Vasher told the Sioux City Journal, "Even though we're competitive with each other, at the end of the day some people from Marcus work with people from Remsen and Paullina. It's a competitive relationship between the communities, but I also think there's a lot of respect."