Metro Sports Report

Rylee Blood wins Metro Spotlight Award

Cedar Rapids Prairie junior Rylee Blood is the winner of the Metro Spotlight Award for high school girls this week, the Metro Sports Report announced Sunday.

Blood is one of the top bowlers in the state with a 216.3 game average and a 432.5 series average this season. She ranks No. 1 in the Metro area and No. 2 in the state in both categories.

Blood has rolled the best game in the state this year with a 267 for the Prairie Hawks, who have gotten off to a 2-0 start with victories over Iowa City West and Linn-Mar.

Blood was named the Athlete of the Year on the All-Metro Bowling Team last year and was named the Co-Athlete of the Year in the Mississippi Valley Conference in the Valley Division.

Jefferson girls put clamps on Prairie

Jefferson Coach Jason Edwards speaks so softly that it’s barely above a whisper.

But his J-Hawk girls certainly paid attention to what he had to tell them at halftime Tuesday night as they turned a two-point lead into a 24-point blowout over Prairie in the Jeff gym.

“Coach always tells us to aim for three things,” said junior sparkplug guard Sam Kitterman following the 51-27 runaway win. “Defend, rebound and run.”

Sophomore backcourt running mate Avery Guy repeated the mantra. “He says if we do those three things right, we’ll win games,” she said.

After a sometimes sloppy first half, Jefferson’s girls followed instructions from then on with near perfection. They held Prairie to just five points in the third quarter and kept them from scoring any points at all in the fourth quarter.

Let's hope Paige stays in school

Doug McDermott set a terrific example for college basketball players last season when he postponed his entry into the NBA draft and returned to Creighton for his senior year with the Bluejays.

Let's hope Marcus Paige does the same thing and returns to North Carolina next season for his senior year with the Tar Heels.

McDermott was a first team All-American at Creighton as a junior and undoubtedly would have been a first-round NBA draft pick that year, but he decided to stay in school and wait another year before raking in millions of dollars in the pros with the Chicago Bulls.

McDermott's situation was a little different because he was playing for his father, Greg, at Creighton and had his family to consider, but he made the right choice and stayed in school.

Paige should as well.

This Uthoff is a wrestler for Prairie

If your last name is Uthoff, you can either play basketball during the winter or you can wrestle.

Sam Uthoff is a wrestler for Cedar Rapids Prairie. And he's a darn good one.

"The story that my dad always told me is, if you're tall and a Uthoff you go to Jefferson to play basketball," he said Saturday, "and the Uthoffs that go to Prairie are wrestlers.

"It makes the name sound good when they're both pretty good."

Uthoff upheld the family name Saturday by capturing the 126-pound title at the Independence Invitational with three pins and a decision.