Metro Sports Report

Big Ten football, Christensen, J-Hawk ads

Somebody needs to conduct a serious analysis of what's happened to Big Ten football.

With all the attention paid to Maryland and Rutgers joining the league and the expanded Big Ten "footprint," there doesn't seem to be much attention being paid to the quality of the product on the field.

Ohio State, Michigan State and Michigan all lost non-conference games Saturday. They all lost to quality opponents, but they were losses nonetheless. Ohio State fell to Virginia Tech, Michigan State lost to Oregon and Michigan got embarrassed by Notre Dame, 31-0.

Northwestern lost to Northern Illinois, a good program from the MAC, and the Iowa Hawkeyes nearly lost to Ball State, just a week after the Hawkeyes struggled to beat Northern Iowa.

A week ago, Wisconsin lost to LSU.

Michigan State is the highest-ranked team from the Big Ten in the AP poll this week at No. 13, which tells you what voters around the country think of the once-proud conference.

Kane County KO's Kernels from playoffs

GENEVA, Ill. - John Curtiss faced a lot of high-pressure situations on the mound during his days as the closer for the Texas Longhorns, but he never faced a situation as unique as what he faced Sunday night in Geneva, Ill.

Curtiss made his Midwest League debut Sunday after being called up to join the Kernels on Saturday.

He threw five shutout innings for Cedar Rapids, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Kernels’ season going as they fell, 4-2, to the Kane County Cougars in a back-and-forth ballgame before 1,239 fans at Fifth Third Bank Ballpark.

Curtiss spent his spring with the Longhorns and his summer in Elizabethton with the Twins’ rookie level team in the Appalachian League after Minnesota made him its sixth-round pick in the June draft. But with the Kernels’ starting pitching corps running thin, Curtiss got the word he needed to board a plane to Cedar Rapids on Saturday morning and by Sunday night he was starting a game the Kernels needed to win to keep their playoff hopes alive.

All Curtiss did was throw five innings of one-hit baseball at the team with the Midwest League’s best record. He did not give up a hit until the fifth inning, though he did walk a pair and gave up a couple of warning-track sized fly balls.

Jenn Jenks wins Metro Spotlight Award

Jenn Jenks of Linn-Mar is the winner of the Metro Spotlight Award for high school girls this week, the Metro Sports Report announced Sunday.

Jenks, a sophomore, is one of the premier swimmers in the state. She ranks in the top-3 in Iowa in six different events after just a few weeks of the season.

Jenks and her Linn-Mar teammates rank first in the 200 freestyle relay, first in the 400 freestyle relay and third in the 200 medley relay.

Individually, Jenks ranks second in the 100 freestyle (52.68), second in the 500 freestyle (5:12.64) and third in the 50 freestyle (24.49).

Jay Kortemeyer wins Metro Spotlight Award

Jay Kortemeyer of the Xavier football team is the winner of the Metro Spotlight Award for high school boys this week, the Metro Sports Report announced Sunday.

Kortemeyer carried the ball 28 times for 178 yards Friday night as the Saints defeated Davenport Assumption, 30-6, with a ball-control attack at Brady Street Stadium in Davenport.

Kortemeyer averaged a healthy 6.4 yards per carry to help Xavier finish with an official 291 yards on the ground.

Davenport Assumption was ranked No.5 in Class 3A heading into the ballgame. Xavier stayed No.1 in the Class 3A rankings Sunday with the victory.