Metro Sports Report

Aune scores but Xavier rolls, 79-59

Senior guard Jacob Aune had the quarter of his life in the third period of Friday night's basketball game against Xavier.

But his 19 points in the period were not enough to overcome Xavier's all-around play. The Saints whipped Prairie, 79-59, in a Mississippi Valley Conference game at Prairie.

Aune went 8 for 10 from the floor and scored 19 points in the quarter as Prairie (5-6, 2-5) tried to come back from a poor first half and catch the Saints. Aune, who finished with a game-high 24, and the Hawks cut the lead to 12 and seemed to have some momentum going in to the fourth quarter.

Kennedy girls blitz J-Hawks with 13 triples

Larry Niemeyer has coached more 1,000 basketball games during his Hall of Fame career and he knows an outstanding player when he sees one.

Kennedy senior Courtney Strait fits the bill, and Niemeyer was determined to make somebody else on the Kennedy team beat the Jefferson J-Hawks Friday night.

They did.

Strait scored only four points in the first half but it hardly mattered as the Cougars walloped the J-Hawks, 81-39, on Hall of Fame night in the Kennedy gym.

Unselfish Prairie girls are riding high

The Cedar Rapids Prairie girls basketball team did not receive a single vote in the IGHSAU preseason rankings, but it's hard to blame anyone for that.

The Hawks struggled the last three years with records of 5-16, 3-18 and 4-17, so there was no great reason to predict a dramatic change this season.

On top of that, Prairie has a young team with two freshmen, two sophomores, two juniors and only one senior among the top-seven players in the rotation.

Color everyone surprised, at least everyone on the outside.

McCaffery's explosions are calculated

This week the Big Ten found a successor to Bob Knight as a chair-thrower in Iowa's Fran McCaffery.

Fran tapped into his temper during the Iowa-Michigan State blowout Tuesday. He got himself a technical foul and took some frustration out on a chair at the Breslin Center.