Metro Sports Report

Lions pin Jefferson and Waterloo East

The fifth-ranked Linn-Mar Lions took care of both Cedar Rapids Jefferson and Waterloo East, recording a combined 10 pins in two victories Thursday night at Jefferson.

Linn-Mar crushed East, 70-12, then took care of Jefferson, 57-15. Jefferson whipped East, 66-9, in the evening's first match.

“We did a decent job as a whole team,” Linn-Mar Coach Doug Streicher said. “We did a good job getting better as the match went on.”

Prairie wrestlers pound pair of foes

Prairie recorded 12 pins and walloped Dubuque Wahlert and Dubuque Hempstead on Thursday night in a Mississippi Valley Conference wrestling double dual at Prairie.

Prairie beat Wahlert, 59-11, and Hempstead, 66-12.

Josh Wenger, Chris Walters, Trey Blaha and Peyton Wagner had a pair of pins for Prairie. Zach Fiser, Trent Schulte and Skyler St. John also had falls for the Hawks.

Former Kennedy coach Harold Wilkinson dies

Former Cedar Rapids Kennedy coach Harold Wilkinson died Thursday morning at St. Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids.

Wilkinson, 74, had been hospitalized several days with pneumonia.

Wilkinson coached girls track, girls basketball and cross country during his career at Kennedy. His girls track teams had an impressive six-year run at the state track meet from 1977 to 1982 when they finished in the top-4 all six years, including two second-place showings and three third-place finishes.

Kennedy named its girls track meet after its Hall of Fame coach.

Local products helping Panther playoff push

Last Friday afternoon, we welcomed UNI play-by-play announcer Gary Rima to the Gym Class program to talk about the Panthers' upcoming game with Wofford in the FCS football playoffs.

We spent a good deal of the interview kicking around the reasons for yet another successful football campaign for the Panthers this fall. UNI has established itself as one of the top FCS Division I football programs in America thanks to Coach Mark Farley, his staff and their philosophy. That philosophy includes bringing in some of the top in-state talent from Iowa. The Panthers have continually signed players, thought too short or too slow to play FBS football, and turned them into quality FCS players.

Those players include a pair of Metro products who are helping the Panthers in a big way in 2011. Jay Teply is from Xavier and Tyler Sievertsen from Kennedy.