Metro Sports Report

Storla plans to play, broken knuckle or not

Marion tailback Colton Storla trained religiously for the 2011 high school football season, only to sustain a painful injury in the opening game against Mount Vernon two weeks ago.

He doesn't plan to let it slow him down anymore.

Storla injured his left hand when he was hit by a face mask during a 14-10 victory over Mount Vernon, then played sparingly in a 28-14 triumph over Benton Community last week.

"I may have broken a knuckle in this one," he said Thursday, offering his hand for inspection. "They said it wasn't (broken), but it's still pretty tender."

Storla, a 5-foot-9, 225-pound senior, rushed for 1,250 yards last season, but he's been limited to only 136 yards on 28 carries this year in two games.

Sievertsen enjoys fast start as UNI kicker

CEDAR FALLS - Tyler Sievertsen grew six inches before his senior year at Kennedy High School, but by then it was too late.

He'd already decided to forget about playing a regular position on the football field.

"That was the reason I started kicking," he said, "because I wasn't big enough to do anything else."

It's turned out OK.

Sievertsen made his debut as Northern Iowa's new place-kicker Saturday night and booted two field goals and an extra point in a 20-19 loss at Iowa State. Based on that, the Missouri Valley Conference named him the Special Teams Player of the Week.

MSR Photo Gallery offers photos for sale

Everybody loves pictures.

Moms and dads, aunts and uncles, grandparents, kids, cousins, neighbors and fans.

We launched the Metro Sports Report on Jan. 3, and ever since people have been asking how they can obtain copies of the pictures that we post on the website.

Now we have the answer.

The Metro Sports Report is proud to announce the launch of the MSR Photo Gallery, a new service that will give our readers an opportunity to purchase the pictures you see on our pages, along with many, many more photos that you haven't seen before.

We've posted only a tiny fraction of the pictures that our photographers have taken at high school sports events, because we didn't have room to show them all. The rest of those photos sat in a file, sight unseen by most people.

Until now.

Now we can post as many pictures as we want from each event on the MSR Photo Gallery. We can post dozens of pictures. We can post hundreds, if we want.

The Metro Sports Report is working with an innovative company called SmugMug to handle most of this for us. Our photographers simply post their pictures on the MSR Photo Gallery and the rest is handled automatically by SmugMug and the customer.

It's really very easy.

Simply go to msrphotogallery.smugmug.com to get started. That takes you to the home page, and from there you follow the easy step-by-step directions that guide you through the process.

Former Metro preps in pro baseball

RYAN SWEENEY (Xavier, Oakland Athletics) -- Oakland was not scheduled to play Thursday.
Year-to-date: Batting avg. -- .271 (67-247), HR -- 1, RBI -- 23, 2B -- 11, 3B -- 2, R -- 31, SB -- 1.

MATT HOLLAND (Marion, GCL Phillies) -- Season completed.
Year-to-date: Batting avg. -- .236 (26-110), HR -- 4, RBI -- 15, 2B -- 7, 3B -- 0, R -- 19, SB -- 1.

SCOTT SCHEBLER (Prairie, Ogden (Dodgers)) -- Started at designated hitter Thursday and was 1-for-5 with a triple and run scored in Ogden's 9-4 season-ending win at Casper. The Raptors have qualified for the Pioneer League playoffs.
Year-to-date: Batting avg. -- .285 (84-295), HR -- 13, RBI -- 58, 2B -- 17, 3B -- 8, R -- 44, SB -- 1.

KELLEN SWEENEY (Jefferson, Bluefield (Blue Jays)) -- Season completed.
Season stats: Batting avg. -- .114 (4-35), HR -- 0, RBI -- 1, 2B -- 1, 3B -- 0, R -- 4, SB -- 0.

NATE WOODS (Xavier, Jupiter (Marlins)) -- Season completed.
Season stats (Total, 3 teams): Batting avg. .266 (47-177), HR -- 4, RBI -- 22, 2B -- 17, 3B -- 1, R -- 23, SB -- 0.