Prairie High School - Cedar Rapids, Iowa

VanDraska grabs 2nd at state meet

FORT DODGE - Tysen VanDraska planned to use his punishing kick to lick the field at the Class 4A state cross country meet Saturday in Fort Dodge and bring home the title.

Denied the championship, VanDraska employed his infamous kick to claim second place with a gutsy finish on the soft, squishy turf at Lakeside Golf Course.

VanDraska was hoping to whip Ryan Schweizer of Dowling for the individual title in the latest renewal of their personal showdowns, but Schweizer was a little too fast for Van Draska on a gray 50-degree day in Fort Dodge.

VanDraska appeared to slow down near the finish when he realized he wasn't going to win the race. He was running in third place with about 50 yards left when a runner suddenly appeared on his right shoulder.

Unwilling to finish fourth, VanDraska kicked into high gear and nipped Sam Schillinger of Cedar Falls and Trevor Kirk of West Des Moines Valley for the silver medal.

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Prairie sweeps into 5A regional finals

Kate Busswitz was in grade school the last time the Cedar Rapids Prairie volleyball team made it to the state tournament.

"I was like 11 years old," she said Thursday night, smiling at the distant memory.

Now a polished 6-foot-1 high school senior, Busswitz and the Prairie Hawks need one more victory to reach the state tournament for the first time since 2008 and for only the third time in school history.

Prairie swept Waterloo West, 27-25, 25-18, 25-13, in the Class 5A regional semifinals Thursday to get one step closer to the promised land.

The eighth-ranked Hawks (31-7) will host 12th-ranked Dubuque Hempstead (24-11) in the regional finals at 7 p.m. Tuesday, with the winner advancing to the state tournament No. 12-15 at the U.S. Cellular Center in downtown Cedar Rapids.

"Oh my gosh. I can't even explain how bad we want it," Busswitz said. "It will be a tough one. We've got our whole student body ready to come to support us. It will be a close one."

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Prairie falls short at IC West

IOWA CITY – In the opening moments, it was clear that the Prairie Hawks were facing an uphill battle in their Class 4A first-round playoff football game against Iowa City West Wednesday at Trojan Field.

Jalen Rima returned the opening kickoff 65 yards to the 34-yard line to put the Hawks in excellent field position to start the game. But a bad snap led to a sack of Prairie quarterback Tyler Nunemaker and gave the Trojans the ball.

West answered with a 67-yard touchdown pass from Alex Henderson to Dallas Majors to instantly take the lead. The Trojans went on to win 35-20 and end Prairie’s season.

“We all got super-pumped about that,” Prairie running back Trevor Northrup said of Rima’s return. “We all expect him to do something like that and when he does, it always gets us going. They came out just as hot, though. It was tough.”

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Heims takes 5th at World meet again

DOHA, Qatar - The big smile in the picture tells the story.

Jessica Heims of Cedar Rapids Prairie raced to a fifth-place finish in the 400-meter run at the 2015 International Paralympic World Championships in Qatar Wednesday afternoon.

She also placed fifth in the discus at the World Games on Sunday.

Heims was timed in 1 minute, 12.48 seconds in the 400, chopping nearly three seconds off her previous best. Marie-Amelie Le Fur of France won the race in 59.3 seconds. Grace Norman of the United States finished third in 1:03.83.

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