By Bob Bakken
MaxPreps.com
Iowa’s boys golf champions have been determined, as state meets in Classes 1-A, 2-A, and 3-A were held last week. Class 4-A boys golf teams play their seasons in the fall, in contrast to the spring seasons played by the smaller schools.
Cedar Falls Northern University High won the Class 1-A team title and Waterloo Walnut Ridge Academy’s Jon Tink took the individual medalist honors at the 1-A meet in Livermore.
NU High took the team title by one stroke. It was the first-ever state championship for the Cedar Falls school in the 40-year history of the program. The Little Panthers rallied in the second round to take the team title away from Winthrop-East Buchanan, which held a 10-stroke lead after day one of the tournament, but slipped to fourth in the final standings.
NU finished with a team score of 683, one shot better than second place Newell-Fonda and defending state titlist Mason City Newman Catholic.
"It was so close that we had to wait a little bit before celebrating,” Little Panther coach Lee Weber told the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. “We were looking at the scoreboard, doing our own scoring and calculating, so we were pretty confident, but we had to make sure."
The Class 2-A state title was won by PCM-Monroe by one stroke over Gilbert, which had Ryan McKilligan win the individual medalist championship.
In 3-A, Ballard of Huxley easily won the state championship with Carroll’s Kirby Pettit take the individual title.
Wrestling: Southeast Iowa Grappler Commits To Iowa
New London/Winfield-Mount Union wrestler Jeret Chiri is changing his black and gold high school singlet for another one of the same color, this one at the University of Iowa. He’ll redshirt during the upcoming season and has four years of eligibility with the Hawkeyes, starting in 2009.
Chiri’s verbal commitment to the Iowa program, coached by Tom Brands, comes after he was recently named an honorable mention All-America by USA Wrestling.
Chiri won the Class 1-A state championship this past season at 152 pounds, capping a 46-1 campaign. He was a three-time state tournament place-winner and a four-time state meet qualifier.
Jeret collected 116 pins among his 180 career victories in high school, putting him among the top 10 all-time for pins by an Iowa high school wrestler.
Basketball: Loria Named New Iowa City-City High Coach
He may have been coaching one of the top Class 3-A programs in Iowa at Cedar Rapids Xavier, but Adam Loria still bleeds Little Hawk red, so it was not an issue for him to take over at his alma mater, Iowa City-City High.
Loria was named as the new coach for the defending Class 4-A state champion Little Hawks, coming home a dozen years after his graduation from City High.
He coached Xavier to a 12-11 record last year, a season that included an upset of eventual state champ Dubuque Wahlert. Loria also coached at Iowa City Regina before coming to Xavier.
“No matter what anybody says or thinks, it’s never an easy decision,” Loria told the Cedar Rapids Gazette. “This was going to be the only place I’d leave Xavier for.”
Basketball: Sioux City Native Hopes to Change Des Moines North Fortunes
The Des Moines North girls basketball team’s current losing streak is at 84 games, and a native of Sioux City has been named to try to turn that around.
Kris Byam says he wants his girls to forget the number 84 and focus on a positive attitude. To that end, one of the things he’s done is to get his team into a different summer league instead of playing all of the Des Moines metro schools.
“The old attitude was, we were expected to lose, but I'm going in with the idea that we're going to change the way we do things, so we can succeed,” Byam told the Sioux City Journal. “I want them to forget that number 84. That's why we're in a new summer league so we can teach them to win in the summer, then it will come naturally in the winter."
The 1999 graduate of Sioux City North was an assistant coach last season under Randy Brayton at Des Moines North, whose squad posted their third straight winless season, going 0-22.
Byam’s background also includes working as a student manager for Lisa Bluder's women’s basketball program at Iowa and as a graduate assistant at Drake.
