Metro Sports Report

Murphy runs away at Prairie Invy

The last time Daniel Murphy ran in a high school cross country race, he collapsed at the Class 4A state meet in Fort Dodge and ended up in a hospital.

Saturday was much, much better.

Murphy ran away with top honors at the 30th Prairie Invitational and shattered the meet record in 15 minutes, 26 seconds for the 5K course.

The Linn-Mar senior beat Tysen VanDraska of Prairie by 11 seconds in the field of 17 schools and 119 individuals.

"I was not expecting that, honestly," Murphy said after his convincing victory. "Me and Tysen were battling a lot. I'm going to take it. It's a P.R. (personal record)."

Murphy was one of the top runners for the Linn-Mar varsity last year as a junior, but he suffered from dehydration and perhaps a virus at the state meet and finished 115th and last in 19 minutes, 43 seconds.

Cedar Valley Christian enjoys first victory

Cedar Valley Christian took a bold step four years ago when it started a high school football program from scratch with a bunch of inexperienced kids and no field.

The Huskies were determined to have a team at their small school on the southeast side of Cedar Rapids and all their hard work paid off Friday night.

Cedar Valley trimmed Harmony, 30-20, for the first victory in school history in an 8-Player game in Farmington, snapping a streak of 22 lopsided defeats.

"That's great," Coach Ed Betsworth said Saturday morning. "I'm glad it happened, finally."

The Huskies finished with an 0-4 record in 2011, went 0-9 in 2012 and 0-9 again last year. Some of those scores were pretty ugly as the Huskies learned how to play the game, but they got a nice reward Friday.

Warriors outlast pesky J-Hawks, 43-26

Almost 47 years to the day, Jefferson All-Americans John Blessman and Doug Lane returned together to the Kingston Stadium sidelines Friday night for a football game with Washington.

Blessman came from the Amanas, Lane from California.

The last time they were there the Warriors beat their heralded undefeated team to break the J-Hawks' 37-game win streak.

The two old gladiators gave a pep talk to this year’s rejuvinated Jefferson squad and came close to getting revenge for that bitter loss nearly a half-century ago.

Lions turn tables on Prairie, 35-9

Bob Forsyth said he never mentioned it.

“I don’t recall it ever coming up,” he said as a big smile crossed his face.

The “it” of which the veteran Linn-Mar football coach spoke was the result of the Lions last visit to John Wall Field in Week 8 of the 2013 season against Prairie.

In that contest, the Hawks amassed 615 total yards en route to a 63-17 victory.

What a difference 10 months can make.

Linn-Mar’s defense held Prairie to just 72 yards on the ground while the offense took advantage of five Prairie turnovers to win the 2014 opener, 35-9, on a rainy night at Prairie.