Kennedy High School - Cedar Rapids, Iowa

No. 7 Cougars sink Linn-Mar

The seventh-ranked Kennedy Cougars won all 12 events Tuesday night and dunked Linn-Mar, 137-48, in a Mississippi Valley Conference swim meet at Kennedy.

Maddie Bagby was a four-time champ for Kennedy. She captured the 100 free and 200 free and swam on the triumphant 200 and 400 freestyle relays.

MacKinzee Macho and Kassidy Lovig were triple-champs for the Cougars. Jessica Williams, Raquel Green and Taylor Golden participated in two victories.

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Sellers commits to Liberty University

Cedar Rapids Kennedy senior Lela Sellers plans to play college basketball at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., The Gazette reported on its website Monday.

Sellers, 5-foot-11, averaged 14.5 points, 5.2 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 2.6 steals for Kennedy last year.

She transferred to Kennedy last year after moving to the area from Minnesota.

Dralle, Walsh join 2,000-yard club

Kennedy's Tyler Dralle and Marion's Kory Walsh each cracked the 2,000-yard barrier in career rushing yards Friday and each hopes to climb the charts in the final two weeks of the high school football regular season.

Dralle now has 2,072 career rushing yards and Walsh has 2,049, ranking them 13th and 14th in Metro history according to Metro Sports Report records.

Andre Dawson of Washington holds the Metro record with a whopping 5,084 yards rushing from 2007-09.

Dralle has a chance to finish ninth on the career list with Kennedy headed to the Class 4A playoffs. Derek Kielkopf of Kennedy (1998-99) is currently ninth with 2,536, so Dralle needs 465 yards to pass him.

Dralle is the No. 2 rusher in Class 4A this season with 1,157 and his 13 touchdowns rank tied for fifth. Sam Cook of Fort Dodge is the 4A top rusher with 1,454 yards.

The Metro area has two 4A state leaders. Linn-Mar's Alexy Boehm is tied for tops with five field goals and Kennedy's Shaun Beyer is No. 1 in punting average at 44.5 yards per boot.

Austin Coates of Kennedy is tied for third with four interceptions. Daniel Gorsich of Linn-Mar is eighth with 36 pass receptions.

In Class 3A, Xavier quarterback Bryce Schulte is tied for fifth with 16 touchdown passes and eighth in yards with 1,168.

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Anderson wins Metro Spotlight Award

Macy Anderson of Cedar Rapids Kennedy is the winner of the Metro Spotlight Award for high school girls this week, the Metro Sports Report announced Sunday.

Anderson, a senior, is a key member of the Kennedy volleyball team that is ranked No. 5 in Class 5A with a 21-8 overall record.

Anderson is the leading kill-shot artist for the balanced Cougars this year with 168. She had 11 kills Tuesday night when Kennedy swept Dubuque Senior, 3-0, to finish its Valley Division slate with a perfect 6-0 record.

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Wilden picked for IHSGCA Hall of Fame

Former Kennedy High School coach Mark Wilden has been selected for the Iowa High School Golf Coaches Association Hall of Fame and will be formally inducted in 2016 along with four other coaches.

Wilden led Kennedy to 12 state tournaments during his 16 years as head coach. The Cougars finished second in four of those tournaments. They also finished third on one occasion and twice placed fourth.

Wilden led Kennedy to nine district titles and 11 Mississippi Valley Conference crowns. He produced 16 all-state players and finished his career with a record of 1166 and 240.

Wilden retired as Kennedy's head coach after the 2014 season. He also coached one year at Vinton.

Tom Kilburg of Western Dubuque, Russ Steinkamp of Carroll, Bob Downs of Oelwein and Fred Wieck of Clear Lake also will be inducted into the IHSGCA Hall of Fame in 2016.

Cougars fall in Westside semifinals

Perhaps they just plain pooped out.

The last of the six Metro teams still standing Saturday in the 24-team Westside Volleyball Invitational, Cedar Rapids Kennedy advanced to the semifinals of the championship bracket but was upended at the end by Class 4A top-ranked West Delaware.

West Delaware lost in the finals to Class 5A seventh-ranked Ankeny Centennial.

The Cougars’ first match in the star-studded tournament started at 9:30 Saturday morning, and the fifth and final one of the day began eight hours later.

“It was a long day in a big tournament with a lot of tough competition,” noted Kennedy middle hitter Brinley Milbrath. “I think we lost a little energy. We seemed to kind of peter out there at the end.”

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Dralle tops 2,000 as Cougars roll

The only drama Friday night at Kingston Stadium was when Kennedy stud running back Tyler Dralle would reach 2,000 yards in career rushing.

With 915 yards last year as a junior and 1,019 so far this year, he needed just 66 more to reach the magic mark heading into the seventh game of the season.

It took Dralle a bit to warm up. But on his eighth carry of the game he gained 27 yards and he picked up another 21 on his next to give him 81 on the night to pass 2,000.

For good measure, the 5-foot-10, 180-pound bundle of muscle scored on the next play from 1-yard out for his third touchdown to put the Class 4A fifth-ranked Cougars ahead of hapless Waterloo East 28-0.

And there was still 2:08 left in the first quarter.

Dralle fumbled at the goal line on Kennedy’s next series but carried four more times on the following possession and scored again from the 3-yard line two minutes into the second quarter.

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Gorman excels as member of 'Team Jenks'

WATERL00 - Pound for pound, inch for inch, year for year, Reagan Gorman of Cedar Rapids Washington is the best distance runner in the Mississippi Valley Conference and perhaps the best in the state.

The petite freshman finished a resounding second at the Mississippi Valley Conference Super Meet on Thursday at Byrnes Park in Waterloo by a scant six seconds behind Iowa City High junior Mary Arch.

Gorman, who measures 5-foot-2 and about 85 pounds, might have caught Arch if the 5K race had been a little longer. She was getting closer and closer as the race wound around the Irv Warren Golf Course.

It's hard to believe a 14-year-old girl who is that small could have so much strength and energy, but Gorman has been running since was about 7 years old and excels in triathlons, a grueling event that combines running, swimming and biking.

Gorman trains for the triathlon with "Team Jenks," a group of outstanding young athletes that features Linn-Mar senior Stephanie Jenks and is operated by the Jenks family. Gorman placed 31st at the national triathlon meet in Westchester, Ohio, this August in the youth elite 13-to-15 age group and is the second-highest ranked triathlete in the state in her division.

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VanDraska gets revenge at MVC meet

WATERLOO - Tysen VanDraska was not happy when he lost to a pair of runners from Cedar Falls at the Cedar Rapids Prairie Invitational back in August at the start of the cross country season.

He did something about it Thursday.

VanDraska used a blistering kick to conquer those same two runners from Cedar Falls and take top honors at the Mississippi Valley Conference Super Meet at Byrnes Park in Waterloo.

Sam Schillinger and Isaac Smith of Cedar Falls pulled away from VanDraska in the final stages of the Prairie Invitational to finish first and second in that race, but this time the Prairie senior was ready for them.

VanDraska sprinted away from the Tigers in the home stretch and won the race in 15 minutes, 46 seconds. He beat Schillinger by four seconds and topped Smith by six seconds.

The three premier distance runners ran neck-and-neck for most of the 5K race before VanDraska took control. It was two-against-one for much of the day in terms of strategy, but VanDraska handled the challenge.

"I knew they were going to try and pick on me the whole race and eventually beat me down, so I just tried my best to stay on them as much as I could," he said. "And I knew I could finish with them."

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