Kennedy High School - Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Prairie jumps to 3rd in volleyball

The Prairie Hawks zoomed seven spots from No. 10 to No. 3 in the new Class 5A volleyball rankings Thursday by the IGHSAU.

Prairie (11-1) won all six of its matches at the Linn-Mar Invitational on Saturday, including four victories over ranked teams. The Hawks returned to Linn-Mar on Tuesday night and beat the Lions again.

Kennedy fell one spot to No. 5 in Class 5A. The Cougars (12-5) knocked off then-No. 1 Cedar Falls on Tuesday night, but the Cougars lost two matches to Cedar Falls at the Osage Tournament on Saturday. Cedar Falls dropped to No. 4 in the poll.

Linn-Mar (12-4) fell two spots to No. 9 this week after its losses to Prairie.

Bettendorf (11-1) is ranked No. 1 in Class 5A. Its only loss was to Prairie in the MVC/MAC Challenge earlier in the season.

The Marion Indians (10-2) stayed No. 2 in Class 4A. West Delaware leads the 4A rankings.

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No. 4 Cougars whip No. 1 Cedar Falls

It was said about Yankees baseball legend Joe DiMaggio that his greatness lay in making the difficult look easy.

The same could be said of the nearly flawless performance by the Kennedy volleyball girls on their home court Tuesday night as they took down Class 5A top-ranked and undefeated Cedar Falls in three sets.

“We got our butts kicked,” Tigers coach Matt Johnson said succinctly.

Johnson has a squad of tall and strong big hitters that came into the match unblemished at 13-0, having lost only five sets all season. Moreover, Cedar Falls had beaten Kennedy twice Saturday (2-0 and 2-1) in the Osage Invitational.

Summed up Cougars coach Michelle Goodall of the weekend contests, “They kicked our butts.”

What a difference three days and a third match make. This time around it was no contest.

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Thrune paces Lions at Valley golf

Max Thrune of Linn-Mar shot a 4-over-par 76 to share medalist honors at the MVC Valley Division golf meet at Hunters Ridge Monday.

Thrune tied for top honors with Alec Weber of Dubuque Wahlert. Jake Sevcik of Linn-Mar tied for third with a 78.

Wahlert edged Linn-Mar in the team standings, 326-328.

At Hunters Ridge

Team Standings

1. Wahlert 326, 2. Linn-Mar 328, 3. Cedar Falls 334, 4. Dubuque Senior 335, 5. Iowa City West 339, 6. Kennedy 346, 7. Jefferson 360.

Top 5 Individuals

1. Max Thrune, Linn-Mar         76

Alec Weber, Wahlert          76

3. Jake Sevcik, Linn-Mar        78

Ben Schmidt, Wahlert         78

5. Louis Psihoyos, Dubuque Sr   79

J.D. Goodfellow, IC West     79

Linn-Mar - Max Thrune 76, Jake Sevcik 78, Brent Larson 85, Jordan Bohannon 89, Jack Recker 92, Ben Greif 93.

Kennedy - Cameron Stump 83, Jordan Weiss 87, Parker Kalb 87, Jonah Beman 89, Jake Corkery 90, Aaron Daughetee 97.

Jefferson - Adam Van Oort 83, Nile Happel 87, Carter Schmitz 92, Lucas Brown 98, Connor Hammons 109, Austin Schmitz 114.

No.4 Cougars spiked by No.1 Cedar Falls

OSAGE - The fourth-ranked Kennedy volleyball team lost to No. 1 Cedar Falls, 25-17, 25-13, in the championship match of the Osage Tournament Saturday.

The Cougars went 2-1 in pool play with victories over Mason City (21-10, 21-9) and Decorah (21-8, 21-6), coupled with a loss to Cedar Falls the first time they met (21-17, 28-30, 15-8).

Kennedy defeated Dike-New Hartford (25-20, 25-22) in the semifinals before falling to Cedar Falls again in the finals of the eight-team event.

No. 7 Cougars roll by North Scott

The Cardiac Cougars gave their hearts and nerves a rest Friday night.

Nick Duehr passed for four touchdowns and No. 7 Kennedy held North Scott to 145 yards of total offense in a 42-0 cakewalk in a Class 4A non-district game at Kingston Stadium.

Shaun Beyer caught three TD passes from Duehr, Tyler Dralle rushed for 149 yards and the Cougars collected four turnovers, including three by handyman Austin Coates.

Kennedy (3-0) posted a pair of heart-stomping victories in the first two weeks of the season against Iowa City West (34-31) and Washington (28-24), but the Cougars had a chance to relax against North Scott (0-3) on homecoming.

"I'm very happy with the way we came out and played on both sides of the ball," coach Brian White said. "It was a total game for us tonight.

"They just played well, all over the place. Nick Duehr played well, Beyer played well, obviously our offensive line played well, Tyler Dralle had tough yards tonight. And our defense -- wow."

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Stump sparks Cougars at MVC golf

Cameron Stump fired a 1-over-par 37 Thursday to grab medalist honors and help the Kennedy Cougars win a Mississippi Valley Conference quadrangular meet at Ellis Park.

Kennedy and Wahlert both finished with 162 strokes, but the Cougars were declared the winner on a tiebreaker.

Nile Happel of Jefferson was the runner-up with a 38.

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Cougars jump to 4th in volleyball poll

The Kennedy Cougars climbed three spots to No. 4 in the new Class 5A volleyball rankings Thursday by the IGHSAU.

Kennedy has an 8-3 record and trails Cedar Falls, Bettendorf and Ankeny Centennial in the poll.

Linn-Mar jumped one notch to No. 7 in the 5A rankings. Prairie fell five spots to No. 10.

The Marion Indians stayed No. 2 in Class 4A behind West Delaware.

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VanDraska leads Prairie to title

Tysen VanDraska was sorely disappointed when he finished seventh at the Class 4A state cross country meet last fall.

"I kind of choked a little bit," he claimed Thursday.

He does not plan to let it happen again.

VanDraska captured top honors and led Cedar Rapids Prairie to the team championship Thursday at the annual Cedar Rapids Invitational at Noelridge Park.

VanDraska won the 5K outing in 16 minutes, 7.68 seconds, edging Brandon Cooley of Bettendorf by 1.5 seconds in a tight race throughout. Prairie ran away with the team championship with 31 points with Jake Moore finishing fourth, Chris Oehlert sixth and Cam Steffens seventh.

VanDraska may have been a little harsh on himself by claiming he "choked a little bit" at the state meet, but he's always set high standards for himself as a distance runner.

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Kennedy swimmers dunk Warriors

The Kennedy girls swimming team won all 12 events and defeated Washington, 133-53, in a Mississippi Valley Conference meet Tuesday night at the Kennedy pool.

Kennedy is ranked No. 6 by the IGHSAU and Washington is ranked No. 10, but the Cougars did not give the Warriors any room to breathe.

Jessica Williams was a four-time winner for Kennedy. She captured the 100 fly and 100 back and swam on the victorious 200 medley relay and 400 freestyle relay.

Kirsten Siebenga, Kassidy Long and Maddie Bagby were triple champs for the Cougars. MacKinzee Macho and Taylor Golden were double winners.

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