Metro Sports Report

Jensen Sevening wins Metro Spotlight Award

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

Sevening and Olivia Garcia have given the second-ranked Lions a strong 1-2 punch this season. Sevening has seven goals and five assists in eight games.

Here is our Question-&-Answer session with Jensen Sevening:

MSR: What has been your favorite individual highlight in sports?

JENSEN: This one is from my freshman year (2012) in a game at Linn-Mar against a pretty big rival Iowa City West. The game was first played for about 15 minutes until it was stormed out and postponed until later.

When it continued, I scored off of a free kick with about 10 minutes left to put us up 1-0. With about three minutes left, West tied it at 1-1 and the game went into overtime. We scored about halfway through, but the ref called it off due to a hand ball so the game then went to penalty kicks.

After five shooters, it was again tied at 5-5, so it became sudden death PKs and our keeper Rylie Frese made an awesome save and I scored the game-winning goal as the sixth shooter.

Busy Kamin claims MVC golf title

MJ Kamin did not stick around for the awards ceremony after winning the Mississippi Valley Conference golf tournament at Hunters Ridge Monday, but she wasn't being rude or fat-headed.

She simply had to hustle back to Cedar Rapids Washington for practice with the girls soccer team, her other varsity squad this spring.

She also ran on the cross country team and played basketball this year while maintaining a superlative GPA and a part-time job at the Westfield Tennis Club.

The kid simply likes to keep busy.

Kamin shot a 7-over-par 79 to claim medalist honors at the MVC Super Meet, topping Teresa Lopez Moreno of Linn-Mar by two shots.

Kernels knock off Bandits, 5-2

DAVENPORT - The Cedar Rapids Kernels scored three runs in the eighth inning to snap a 2-2 tie Monday night and defeat the Quad Cities River Bandits, 5-2, in a Midwest League game before 1,343 fans at Modern Woodmen Park.

Logan Wade, Zach Larson and Engelb Vielma collected two hits for the Kernels, who won for the third straight time. Zach Larson and Bryan Santy had two RBIs.

Starting pitcher Ethan Mildren began the game with four scoreless innings, extending the staff's streak of unblemished innings to 27 straight before the Bandits scored in the fifth.

Kernels blank Peoria again, 2-0

The Cedar Rapids Kernels wrapped up their homestand with another pitching gem Sunday as starting pitcher Ryan Eades (3-3) combined with his bullpen to shut out the Peoria Chiefs, 2-0, in front of 1,437 fans at Veterans Memorial Stadium.

Since giving up seven runs in a disastrous fourth inning in Thursday night’s loss to the Chiefs, Kernels pitchers have combined to toss 23 straight shutout innings.

Eades, the Minnesota Twins’ second-round draft pick in 2013, struck out five Chiefs batters in his five innings of work, giving up just three singles, but he worked from behind in the count much of the day and gave up a pair of walks.

“Eades didn’t have his best today,” Kernels Manager Jake Mauer observed. “He had a lot of three-ball counts. He spent a lot of pitches, but to his credit, he still was able to go five innings scoreless.

“He showed something today as far as being a starter. He takes responsibility. He gave us five scoreless and turned it over to the bullpen.”

And what a job that bullpen did. Yorman Landa and Hudson Boyd faced the minimum 12 batters over their four innings of combined work.