Metro Sports Report

Stansbury sparks KCC by No. 2 Lincoln

There are hundreds of good colleges between L.J. Stansbury's home town in Delaware and way out here in Cedar Rapids, but he felt at home during his visit to Kirkwood and figured this would be a good place to play ball.

He was right.

Stansbury exploded off the bench Wednesday with 21 points and 10 rebounds to help the Eagles dump second-ranked Lincoln College, 71-55, in a non-conference game at Johnson Hall.

Stansbury, a versatile 6-foot-4 freshman who can play four positions, reached a career-high in points and rebounds and had a double-double by halftime.

"He was huge for us," said Kirkwood Coach Bryan Petersen. "He came off the bench and was able to score and rebound for us. That's the player we feel that L.J. can be."

Stansbury has started eight games for the Eagles this season, but he lost his spot in the lineup in December and has played as a reserve the last five games.

Aikey, Robertson returning to IWSL for 2018

Kelsey Aikey and Sydney Robertson enjoyed playing in the new Iowa Women's Softball League last summer.

Now they are returning for Year 2.

Aikey and Robertson have boosted the enrollment for the 2018 campaign to 27 players, with 18 registered for the Eastern Division in Cedar Rapids and nine for the Central Division in Ames and Indianola.

Aikey, a strong pitcher, compiled a 7-4 record and 2.92 ERA as a freshman at Western Kentucky last season. She starred in the Conference USA tournament when she tossed 11 2/3 innings and did not allow a single run.

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Aikey was named to the Conference USA All-Freshman Team and also was selected to the C-USA honor roll for her work in the classroom. Aikey began her high school career at Cedar Falls and spent one year at Waverly-Shell Rock as a senior.

Balanced No. 8 KCC women dump Loras JV

Kim Muhl has another strong basketball team at Kirkwood Community College this season.

The Lady Eagles are ranked eighth in the nation, boast a 14-3 record and are averaging 73.4 points per game, but there's something a little odd about this year's club.

Tay Wilson is the only player on the team who has a scoring average in double figures, and she was averaging 9.94 points before raising it to exactly 10.0 Thursday night in an 89-63 victory over the Loras junior varsity at Johnson Hall.

Awal Ajak is averaging 9.6 points, Leah Robinson 8.7, Megan Axcell 8.2, Olivia Usher 7.5 and Arika Wooldridge 6.5. All of them are capable of scoring a lot more on any given night - and most of them have - but Muhl likes to rotate a dozen players and share the wealth.

That was the story again Wednesday.

All 14 Eagles got into the game and 12 of them saw at least 10 minutes of court time. Twelve players got into the scoring column, but nobody had a monster game.

Axcell led the way with 13 points. Wilson and Ajak netted 11 apiece, but nobody else reached double figures.

Kirkwood men hold off Dubuque JV

The search continues for the Kirkwood men's basketball team.

The search for a productive starting lineup. The search for an effective rotation. The search for success.

The Eagles held off the University of Dubuque junior varsity, 71-63, Thursday night at Johnson Hall, but Coach Bryan Petersen is still searching for the right answers with the conference race on the horizon.

"Obviously this wasn't a great overall effort from our group," said Petersen. "We won, but it's on me. We just didn't have the group ready to go tonight. Not a great effort."

Kirkwood has pounded a lot of JV teams over the years, but this was a competitive game from start to finish. The Eagles led by only one point at halftime, 34-33, and were never able to put the Spartans away despite opening a 13-point lead.

Just when it looked like the game was in the bag at 67-54, Dubuque scored nine straight points to make it 67-63.