Metro Sports Report

Jared Thorson wins Metro Spotlight Award

Cedar Rapids Washington senior Jared Thorson is the winner of the Metro Spotlight Award for high school boys this week, the Metro Sports Report announced Sunday.

Thorson is a prominent member of the Washington swimming team that captured its 52nd straight district title Saturday at the Linn-Mar Aquatic Center. Thorson won the 100 butterfly at the district meet and posted the fastest qualifying time for the state meet in 51.16 seconds.

Washington jumped all the way from 14th to No. 2 in the team power ratings with its impressive performance at the district meet. The Warriors finished second at the state meet last year and will be vying for high honors again at the 2015 state meet this Saturday in Marshalltown.

Wash swimmers win 52nd title in row

Cedar Rapids Washington’s dominance at the boys district swimming meet has to end sooner or later.

But not for now.

A bunch of pool records were set Saturday at the first-ever district meet at the luxurious new Linn-Mar Aquatic Center, most of them by a small fleet of fast swimmers from Iowa City West.

Still, for the 52nd year in a row, the team championship was claimed by a gutsy gang of Washington Warriors who refused to see the magical streak stopped on their watch.

It wasn’t until the last race of the day in the 400 yard freestyle relay that they knew they had the title in the bag. Even if they were disqualified, they would have won by a half-point.

Hruska is big part of Kirkwood's success

Kirkwood Community College honored Kim Muhl on Saturday for his 750 victories as their women's basketball coach, an accomplishment that includes six national titles and a string of other major accolades during the past 26 years.

Joe Hruska has been loyally at his side for most of it.

Hruska, 56, has been one of Muhl's assistant coaches for 24 years with the women's basketball program. Prior to that, he helped Muhl with the Kirkwood softball program when Muhl was running that team as well.

Hruska also served as an assistant coach with the men's basketball program at Kirkwood before switching sides and joining the women. He's been there for all six national titles, 15 national tournaments, 20 straight 20-win campaigns, a school-record 37 wins, a string of 106 straight conference victories and 24 All-Americans.

"You know, it's been a pretty good run," he said Saturday with modest pride.

Tagarelli grabs 23 rebounds as KCC rolls

Kirkwood sophomore Joe Tagarelli was mildly disappointed when he left Saturday's game against NIACC and was told he finished the afternoon with 23 rebounds.

That's a career for some guys, but "Tags" wanted more.

"I was trying to go for the school record," he said. "So I was a little disappointed I didn't put my name in the record book. But that's all right. We got the win. It was a good team win."

Tagarelli finished with an impressive double-double with 18 points and 23 boards as the 11th-ranked Eagles bopped NIACC, 88-70, in an ICCAC Conference game at Johnson Hall.