Metro Sports Report

Kiah & Tia finding hoops happiness out East

While a handful of top local prep athletes scattered to Division I programs around the Midwest this past fall, two of the Metro’s premier girls basketball players heeded the call to “Go East, young woman” – Washington standout Tia Dawson to the rarified academic atmosphere of Ivy League Dartmouth College and Linn-Mar All-American Kiah Stokes to the stratosphere of women’s college basketball at the University of Connecticut.

With a semester of college behind them, both are establishing a home far away from home on the East Coast and making contributions on the court.

Warriors knock Lions dead at FT line

From the bench Tuesday, Washington Coach Frank Howell yelled out a dizzying array of numbers and play calls to his girls all night.

With two minutes to go and his Warriors ahead of Linn-Mar 47-42, he screamed, “Elvis. Elvis.”

“It means,” he explained later, “that if you shoot it, you’re dead. Elvis is the most famous dead guy I know.”

His teenage players might not grasp the significance of Elvis, he freely admitted, “But they know what ‘Elvis’ means.”

And they minded their coach, too.

After leading much of the way and then clawing back from a two-point deficit at the start of the fourth quarter, Washington ran its four-corners ball-control to perfection and closed out a 53-42 win from the free throw line.

The Class 4A seventh-ranked Warriors (8-3, 7-3 MVC) held the Lions (6-8, 3-7) to just two baskets in the final period, and one of them was a fluke.

Predicting the pairings, girls edition

Last week we took a look into the crystal ball at the possible postseason assignments on the boys' side of basketball, this week it's the girls' turn.

Before we do let's see how we did predicting the the boys substate tournament assignments, which were released Monday.

I thought there was a good chance that all of the Class 4A Metro squads could be pooled together in a six team substate. Turns out that five of the Metro teams were thrown together, along with Iowa City High, into Substate #6. The sixth team, Jefferson, was sent north to Substate #3 to join a group that includes top 10 rated Cedar Falls.

Kudos to the Iowa High School Athletic Association for a job well done on assembling the eight substates for the year. At first look, all eight are fair and balanced with at least two standout teams in each of the substate pods. The actual pairings within the substates will be set after game number 15 for each school, and we will also know the sites for the substate finals at that time.

No. 9 J-Hawks dumped by Davenport Central

Jefferson Coach Stu Ordman watched Davenport Central warm up Tuesday night and sensed the J-Hawks could be in trouble.

"They're athletic," he said with an apprehensive smile a few minutes before tipoff.

The Blue Devils were athletic and very good.

Davenport Central thumped the No. 9 J-Hawks, 67-48, in a non-conference game at the Jefferson gym.