Metro Sports Report

Metro rules the 400 hurdles

DES MOINES - Brooke Foreman ran the best race of her life Friday and Kyle Dunn ran one of the fastest races in Iowa prep history.

Together, they crowned the Metro area as the undisputed monarchs of the 400-meter hurdles this year.

Foreman, a junior at Cedar Rapids Washington, slashed more than 1.2 seconds off her previous best in the 400 hurdles and won the Class 4A state title in 1:02.62.

She crossed the finish line and pointed to the sky, a tribute to her grandfather Edward Foreman, who died in January after a courageous battle with cancer.

"That was for my grandpa. All of that was for him," she said breathlessly, with a big happy smile. "I just ran the race of my life."

Dunn, a senior at Linn-Mar, ran one of the best races in state history and captured his 400 hurdles in 51.04 seconds, but barely missed the Iowa all-time best of 50.96 set by Dustin Avey of Ames in 1996.

Race a breeze, but not the celebration

DES MOINES - The Cedar Rapids Jefferson girls made their victory in the 4x200 relay look easy at the Class 4A state track meet Friday.

The post-race celebration turned out to be the rough part and left Rachel Broghammer with blood oozing from a cut on her right eyebrow.

The happy J-Hawks jumped into each other's arms after winning the race, and Broghammer's head hit Taylor Jacobson in the mouth. Broghammer has a gold medal - and a toothmark - to prove it.

"I can't even feel it," Broghammer said, laughing and mopping blood from around her eye. "I'm on such a high right now. I know she smacked me, but I didn't know it was bleeding."

They're blood sisters now, united in victory along with Maliya Rattliffe and Summer Carber.

Warriors relish the underdog role

(Editor's Note: This is the sixth in a series of preseason stories about Metro baseball teams. Next: Xavier)

This has been an eventful year for the Cedar Rapids Washington baseball team. Oddly enough, the season hasn't begun yet.

The Warriors had to change coaches on the second day of practice after Byron Schlotterback asked for a leave of absence and then resigned. And they'll have to play their first seven games without Dakota Freese, their all-state pitcher who has been suspended.

On top of all that, the Warriors finished 11-25 last season and have only 12 or 13 players on the varsity.

"I imagine that the expectations, outside of the program, are not going to be very high," new Coach Brent Henry remarked. "The only thing we can do about that is come under some people's radar and relish the underdog role.

"But how other people see us now isn't really our focus. We're focusing on the things that we can control, and I'll tell you what, we're really excited about the guys we have."

Warriors hope tough times behind them

(Editor's Note: This is the sixth in a series of preseason stories about Metro softball teams. Next: Xavier)

The Washington softball program has fallen on tough times.

But after last season, when the Warriors went 2-36, Coach Fanaye Kifletsadik said she thinks the team is continually improving and hopes they can cause some problems for teams this season that pay off with a few extra wins.

“When I came in here four years ago, this was a program that was not in very good shape, but we are to the point where we are competing,” Kifletsadik said. “Last year we lost eight games by three runs or less. We didn’t have a fabulous record, but we had kids working their way to get to that next step.”

Kifletsadik said she thinks that her girls' work ethic will help them to reach their expectations, namely to get better every day and to compete in every game.

“We have a group that wants to work extremely hard, no matter the situation,” Kifletsadik said. “There are a lot of people that probably don’t expect too much from us, but we have expectations for ourselves.”

The team will be led by their four seniors, the largest senior class in Kifletsadik’s tenure as coach.