Metro Sports Report

Furnish finds her game at Super Meet

Monday was a good day at Ellis Park Golf Course for geese, baby goslings and Megan Furnish.

The geese and their goslings acted like the Mississippi Valley Conference Super Meet was being held for their benefit as they waddled near the ponds and marched onto the course.

Meanwhile, Furnish owned Ellis Park and fired an even-par 72 on the soggy 4,787-yard layout to trim Amy Ihm of Dubuque Wahlert by one shot.

Furnish has been winning meets this spring, but she hadn't been satisfied with all her shots. That changed Monday as the Cedar Rapids Jefferson senior was solid from tee to green.

Surging Indians capture own track meet

There was no Drake Relays letdown for the Marion High School boys track team as the Indians ran away with their own 15-team invitational meet Monday night at Thomas Park.

After competing in a school-record nine events in Des Moines over the past weekend, the Indians claimed three individual titles and three relays on their home track to outpoint runnerup DeWitt Central, 135 to 100.5.

“Hopefully, we’re peaking at just the right time for the conference meet Thursday and the districts next week,” said sprinter Devin LeBeau, who won the 200-meter dash and anchored two winning relays. “Then we want to do well at state. And I think we will. Everybody’s clickin’ right now.”

Shrine Bowl queen runs past challenges

She’s a blonde wisp of a girl with a soft voice and a smile that could thaw a glacier. Don’t be deceived.

Toeing the start line at a track event or a 5 kilometer race, she’s got a competitive streak as tough as the carbon fiber in her prosthetic running leg.

Prairie Point seventh grader Jessica Heims is a natural athlete – a member of her middle school cross-country and track teams and a triathlete.

She’s also royalty, chosen as the Queen for this year’s Iowa Shrine Bowl All-Star Football Game in Ames. With the help of the Shriners Hospitals for Children, she has overcome steep odds to become a competitor in the sports she loves.

It hasn’t been easy, even in a family that has confronted her disability with a generous measure of humor and optimism.

Remembering our former big leaguers

Long before Xavier graduate Ryan Sweeney put Cedar Rapids back on the map by making it to the major leagues eight years ago, three men with local ties created baseball stories that few may remember but most will agree worth recounting.

All three were Cedar Rapids high school products – Dick Rozek from Immaculate Conception, and Cy Slapnicka and Earl Whitehill from the local public school system. All are now buried in local cemeteries, but their stories live on.

Rozek has the distinction of having a 1-0 career major-league record. An outstanding all-around athlete at I.C., he pitched in 29 games for the Cleveland Indians alongside Bob Feller and Bob Lemon (1950-52). In the last game of the 1952 season, Rozek was the winning pitcher against the Detroit Tigers.