Metro Sports Report

New Prairie coach is a bundle of energy

Mike Morrissey bounced around from drill to drill Monday morning, high-fiving his players and yelling words of encouragement as preseason practice began at Cedar Rapids Prairie.

"Is that young guy the head coach?," a startled visitor to practice wanted to know.

Morrissey, 28, gets that a lot. He's the youngest head coach in the Metro area, but he's packed a lot of experience into a short period of time and is thrilled to be Prairie's new man.

"I love it," he said. "These people are smart, they have a great work ethic.

"I think they feed off of us as coaches. I really do," he said, explaining his high-energy approach. "We try to get them upbeat. If you're not running around trying to get kids better every day, it's not worth coming out here."

Morrissey succeeded Craig Jelinek, who retired after the 2010 campaign with a 106-96 record in 20 years. The Hawks appear to have quickly embraced their new coach.

Kellen Sweeney on the mend in Florida

Kellen Sweeney went to a mall in Dunedin, Fla., on Saturday to kill a little time.

That's how it is for ballplayers on the disabled list. Time goes slowly when you're hurt.

Sweeney, 19, fractured a small bone at the base of his left thumb in late June while playing for the Bluefield (W.Va.) Blue Jays in the Appalachian League and has not played since June 30. The injury is near his left wrist.

He got caught in a rundown and fell. "When I fell back, I guess I tried to break my fall with my wrist and that's what happened," said Sweeney, who played high school ball at Cedar Rapids Jefferson.

The initial X-rays, taken in Bluefield, did not reveal the fracture, but they knew he was hurt. They eventually sent him to the Toronto Blue Jays' training facility in Dunedin, where an X-ray revealed the fracture and the extent of the injury.

It took a while to figure it out. "Probably at least two weeks," he said. "For two weeks I didn't know exactly what it was."

Sweeney missed all of July and now has missed the first week of August. He played in only nine games at Bluefield in the Short Season Class A league and has little to show for it.

He went 4-for-35 for a .114 batting average, then got hurt. "I started off slow, but I was starting to make good contact with the ball when I got hurt," he said.

Metro prep sports heating up again

And, they’re off ... at least officially.

Family vacations are in the books, hanging out with friends is down to a minimum and the dead period of activity in high school sports is over.

Another year of Metro area high school sports begins this week, even before school starts. Practice begins for football, boys and girls cross country, boys golf, girls swimming and volleyball. The first competition of 2011-12 is this week, with the Mississippi Valley Conference golf meet slated Thursday at Twin Pines in Cedar Rapids.

To be completely accurate, the new era of Metro high school sports actually began last week when Cedar Valley Christian School began practice for its inaugural season of eight-man football. The Huskies will play an abbreviated schedule this season, starting with a trip to Maynard to play West Central on Aug. 19.

Steve Koepke owns City Amateur golf title

The guys on the Cedar Rapids Jefferson golf team should listen carefully to their coach when practice begins Monday.

He's the top amateur golfer in Cedar Rapids again this year.

Steve Koepke fired his third sub-par round in three days Sunday and won the 2011 Cedar Rapids City Amateur title by nine strokes with a 54-hole total of 201.

Koepke had rounds of 68 at Gardner Golf Course on Friday, 65 at Jones Park on Saturday and 68 at Ellis Park on Sunday to finish at 13-under par for the tournament.

Scot Glasford and Kurt Hockaday tied for second place at 4-under-par 210.

Koepke had a three-stroke edge over Glasford entering the final round, but Koepke fired a 4-under 68 at Ellis while Glasford shot a 2-over 74 to end the suspense.

Koepke, 38, also won the City Amateur title in 2009 and has strung together five straight top-5 finishes since 2007 with two titles, two second-place finishes and a fourth-place showing.

"This is my granddaddy of all events," said Koepke. "I love the City Am."