Metro Sports Report

Saints dig deep for trip to UNI-Dome

The condensed playoff schedule had taken its toll on Xavier physically, with three games in 11 days on the calendar.

Mentally, the Saints were strong but there wasn't much left in their bodies as they battled West Delaware in a Class 3A quarterfinal Friday night at Saints Field.

With its starting backfield of Jay Kortemeyer and Nic Ekland out with injuries, Xavier turned to some lesser-known players to build a 17-0 lead and held off a determined charge from the visiting Hawks to win 27-17 before an overflow crowd.

Next up for Xavier (9-3) is a semifinal date on Thursday against top-ranked Pella in the UNI-Dome. The Dutch advanced with a 31-14 win over Washington, Iowa.

West Delaware finishes at 10-2.

Kohawks facing Drake in exhibition game

The Coe men's basketball team finished with an 11-15 record last season, but the Kohawks were not far away from doing much better than that.

The Kohawks were outscored by a slim margin, 72.9 to 71.6, and they lost the rebounding battle by a small differential of 35.3 to 34.2 per game. The Kohawks had fewer turnovers than their opponents, more steals and just as many assists.

"It seems like we became the kind of the two-possession losses. And our guys are well-aware of that," third-year coach Bryan Martin said Friday. "These guys are hungry for success this year. They're motivated by last year.

"Our league is that way," he remarked. "It comes down to a couple of possessions almost every game."

Coe will face the Drake Bulldogs in an exhibition game Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Knapp Center in Des Moines, pitting an NCAA Division III team from the Iowa Conference against an NCAA Division I club from the Missouri Valley Conference. Martin plans to use the media timeouts to his advantage and break the game into 10 four-minute segments.

Coe aiming for IIAC tourney crown

Coe College has been a member of the Iowa Conference since 1997, and in all that time the Kohawks have never won the conference volleyball tournament despite having some strong teams.

They hope to change all that Saturday night.

The Kohawks marched into the IIAC tournament finals with a convincing 25-17, 25-13, 25-19 victory over Central College in the semifinals Thursday night at Eby Fieldhouse.

Coe (27-8) will host Buena Vista (25-10) for the title Saturday at 7 p.m., with the winner earning an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III postseason tournament.

"It will be fun," said senior Alissa Wittenburg. "We're going to bring everything we have. All four years we've been working for this."

The Kohawks won the Iowa Conference regular-season title this season with a perfect 7-0 league record. They reached the tournament finals last year, but lost to Wartburg on the road.

Warriors, Saints look to keep rolling

The Cedar Rapids Washington football team is loaded with lots of good players.

Everywhere you look - offense, defense, special teams - there's a talented player is a little bigger, stronger and faster than the other guy on the other team.

It's one of the reasons the top-ranked Warriors are 11-0 and favored to defeat Iowa City West (7-4) in the quarterfinals of the Class 4A playoffs Friday night at Kingston Stadium (7 p.m., KGYM).

The Xavier Saints (8-3) are not quite as loaded with talented athletes this year as they were the last two seasons when they reached the championship game of the Class 4A playoffs, but they've enjoyed another good year and will try to keep advancing when they host sixth-ranked West Delaware (10-1) in the Class 3A quarterfinals at Saints Field (7 p.m., KMRY).

Washington and Xavier are the only two Metro teams still kicking as we move toward the final stages of the 2014 playoffs.

Remarkably, 14 different players have scored touchdowns for the Warriors this season. They do not have a 1,000-yard rusher (yet) or a 1,000-yard passer, but they have plenty of weapons, a powerful running attack and a stout defense.

Washington blanked Iowa City West, 28-0, in Game 3 of the season Sept. 12, holding the Trojans to 101 yards through the air and 99 on the ground. The trick Friday night will be keeping Iowa City West quarterback Aaron Bleil under wraps.