Metro Sports Report

Cougar girls iron out problems with press

The Kennedy girls ironed out a few problems on offense when it applied a pressing defense to start the second half.

Kennedy scored 18 points in the first four minutes of the third quarter - matching its first-half total - and beat Pleasant Valley, 58-44, Saturday night in a nonconference game at Kennedy.

“We came out in the second half playing a press to provide us a spark of intensity. We had no intensity in the first half,” explained Kennedy Coach Dennis Roloff.  “That intensity was all it took.”

Paige nets career-high 35, Lions top Bulldogs

BETTENDORF - Marcus Paige poured in a career-high 35 points Saturday as Linn-Mar topped Bettendorf, 79-62, in a non-conference game in Bettendorf.

Paige scored only nine points in the first half, but he was unstoppable in the second half with 26 markers. He scored 14 straight points for Linn-Mar during a four-minute stretch to start the second half as the Lions (2-0) built a 13-point advantage.

"A great player took over the game and we couldn't do much," Bettendorf senior Tom Dunlavy told the Quad City Times.

Cole Clearman led Bettendorf (1-1) with 19 points.

Scallon a fish back in the water

While he was a state champion swimmer as a boy, Jefferson High School junior Lance Scallon has been like a fish out of water since then.

But he’s back in the swim again as a key first-year member of the J-Hawk team.

Coach Ryan York is happy to have him, even though he knows the swim team wasn’t Scallon’s first choice.  Scallon came out this winter only because knee surgery last summer kept him off the varsity football and basketball teams.  Lean and well-muscled at close to 6-foot-4, he’s already, he’s made a big splash.

In the first dual meet of the season last Tuesday against Waterloo East, Scallon won the 100-yard backstroke and 100 freestyle events and swam on the winning 200 medley and 200 free relays.

At Saturday’s J-Hawk Relays, he put his team in the lead in the first leg of the 400 medley relay and swam strong races in the 300 backstroke and 400 free relays.

Jefferson didn’t fare too well in its own meet, finishing last out of six teams as Dubuque Senior swam away from the rest.

Prairie Hawks storm to Independence title

INDEPENDENCE - Prairie crowned seven champions, had two runners-up and rolled to the team title Saturday at the Independence Invitational wrestling meet.

Winning titles for Prairie were Josh Wenger (113), Chris Walters (120), Trey Blaha (126), Jamie Day (138), Peyton Wagner (152), Austin Gould (182) and Andrew Netolicky (220). Casey Becker (160) and Cameron Rathje (170) finished second. Zack Fiser (106), Jayden Flege (132) and Skyler St. John (145) had third-place finishes.