Kirkwood Community College - Cedar Rapids, Iowa

No. 7 Kirkwood softball wins pair

DES MOINES - The seventh-ranked Kirkwood softball team won two more  games at the Winter Dome Tournament in Davenport Sunday.

The Eagles trimmed Southeastern, 5-3, and blanked Waubonsee, 11-0, in  five innings.

Kirkwood (4-0) scored two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning  against Southeastern to snap a 3-3 tie. Erin Hocker retired the side  in the seventh inning to finish the victory.

Hocker tossed a complete game for the Eagles. She allowed three runs  on seven hits, with four strikeouts and three walks.

Taleah Smith went 3-for-4 for Kirkwood against Southeastern. Jayme  Finn and London Jackson had two hits. Finn drove in three runs and had  a triple.

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No. 4 Eagles knocked off by Iowa Lakes

The Kirkwood Eagles have sunk from being the No. 1 team in the nation to the No. 2 team in their own league in a hurry.

Iowa Lakes handed the Eagles a damaging 82-75 loss in an ICCAC Conference game at Johnson Hall Saturday afternoon.

Kirkwood trails NIACC by a full game in the league standings now with three games left in the regular season in a battle for the No. 1 seed in the regional tournament.

The Eagles fell behind by 17 points early in the second half Saturday and never full recovered, despite a strong rally led by reserve guard Devonte Thedford. The Eagles got within one point at 61-60 and 68-67, but never got over the hump.

"The first 15 minutes of the game I thought we were really bad," said KCC Coach Bryan Petersen. "It didn't look like we had much energy.

"The good thing is, in the second half we didn't just lay down. We clawed our way back into it, so that was good."

Thedford, who had two points at halftime, poured in 21 in the second half with strong drives to the basket and finished with 23 points.

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Tomaszewski boosts No. 7 Eagles

Natalie Tomaszewski looked a little timid and confused at the beginning of the season for the Kirkwood women's basketball team, but she's blossomed into an important player for the Eagles now.

Tomaszewski gave the seventh-ranked Eagles a nice boost off the bench Saturday in an 81-47 victory over Iowa Lakes in an ICCAC Conference game at Johnson Hall.

Tomaszewski collected 12 points, six rebounds, two blocks, two steals and one assist in perhaps her best all-around game of the season.

The 6-foot-3 freshman from Shorewood, Wis., was not in the rotation earlier this season, but she's moved to the forefront following a season-ending injury to starting center Ashley Tull.

"I think in the beginning, I took it like 'Maybe this isn't for me,'" she said. "As I went through the season, I became more positive about the situation."

Tomaszewski has developed into a productive player for Kirkwood, which is locked in a tight battle with second-ranked NIACC for the conference title. She's scored 13, 12 and 12 points in three of the last six games and is more assertive on the floor.

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No. 7 KCC softball wins openers

DAVENPORT - The seventh-ranked Kirkwood softball team began the 2019 season with a pair of victories at the Winter Dome Tournament in Davenport Saturday.

The Eagles topped the St. Ambrose junior varsity, 8-5, and whipped John Wood Community College, 12-3.

The games marked the debut of new Kirkwood Coach Eric Frese, who succeeded Joe Yegge after Yegge left to become an assistant at DePaul.

Jayme Finn, Skylar Ryan and Randyn Carter had two hits in the victory over St. Ambrose. Rachel Stewart and Finn scored twice. London Jackson drove in three runs.

Erin Hocker pitched five shutout innings for the victory in Game 1. She allowed only three hits, with two strikeouts and no walks.

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No. 4 Eagles top Tritons in OT

Kirkwood All-American Doug Wilson probably slept like a baby after Wednesday night's game.

He earned it. So did his teammates.

Wilson sparkled in the second half as the fourth-ranked Eagles survived Iowa Central, 104-90, in overtime in a fast-paced ICCAC conference game at Johnson Hall.

Wilson scored only two points in the first half and was not happy with the way things went, but he made amends with a sensational performance in the second half and overtime.

Wilson played all 25 minutes after intermission - all 20 minutes in the second half and all five minutes in overtime - and poured in 25 points during that span to finish with 27.

He became a Point-A-Minute scoring machine when the Eagles needed him the most.

"I was a little fatigued," he allowed, "but I also expected it. I'm looking to play 25 minutes when my team needs me to."

Wilson, a 6-foot-7 sophomore from Des Moines, connected on 12 of 14 shots in the second half with slick moves around the rim and quick drives to the basket.

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Eagles scrambling for No. 1 seed

The Kirkwood women's basketball team defeated Iowa Central by 12 points Wednesday night at Johnson Hall, 48-36, and actually lost ground in the conference race.

That's because NIACC, which is tied with Kirkwood for first place in the ICCAC conference with identical 11-1 records, clobbered Little Priest Tribal College by 35 points.

There's a good chance that Kirkwood and NIACC will tie for the conference title this season with 15-1 records, so they'll need to use a tiebreaker to determine the No. 1 seed for the regional tournament and the coveted home-court advantage.

The first tiebreaker is head-to-head competition, but the Eagles and Trojans split their two games.

The second tiebreaker is point differential in those two games, but they traded six-point victories.

The third tiebreaker is each team's record against the rest of the conference, which would be 14-0.

The fourth tiebreaker, according to Kirkwood athletic director Doug Wagemester, is overall point differential against all the other teams in the league.

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No. 1 Eagles nixed by NIACC

MASON CITY - The Kirkwood men's basketball team moved to the top of the national rankings this week, but it did not help the Eagles in their first game as the new No. 1 team in the land.

The 12th-ranked NIACC Trojans dumped the Eagles, 95-81, in their showdown for first place in the ICCAC conference standings Saturday.

The Trojans moved into first place with a 9-1 record in the league. The Eagles are now in second place by a half-game with an 8-1 mark in the 14-game campaign.

Kirkwood hammered NIACC, 83-65, in their first meeting on Jan. 19 in Cedar Rapids, but the Trojans returned the favor in the rematch. NIACC raced to a 48-31 lead at halftime.

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No. 2 KCC women fall at NIACC

MASON CITY - The Kirkwood women's basketball team committed 31 turnovers Saturday afternoon and lost its conference showdown with NIACC, 68-62, in Mason City.

The outcome left the second-ranked Eagles and the fifth-ranked Trojans with identical 10-1 records in the ICCAC Conference with five games left in the regular season.

Kirkwood topped NIACC by six points when they met in Cedar Rapids on Jan. 19, and now NIACC has topped Kirkwood by six points in the rematch between two of the premier teams in the country.

NIACC launched 48 3-pointers on Saturday and hit 14 of them for 42 of its 68 points. Kirkwood made just three 3-pointers.

Natalie Tomaszewski led Kirkwood in scoring for the first time this season with 12 points and seven rebounds. Ju Gaston scored 11 points for the Eagles. Leah Robinson collected a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds. Haley Mullinnix also scored 10 points.

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Short-handed Eagles top SCC

At one point during Wednesday's game against Southeastern at Johnson Hall, Kirkwood women's basketball coach Kim Muhl turned to his bench looking for players.

The No. 2 Eagles already had four players sitting in street clothes. When Muhl turned, one player was getting checked out by a trainer and yet another had run to the locker room area not feeling well.

"We got a couple of kids sick and we got a couple of kids (banged up)," Muhl said. "We're holding it together with a Band-Aid right now."

Still, the Eagles found a way to win. They jumped to an early 12-0 lead only to see the visitors cut the margin to one in the third quarter before pulling away for a 63-44 ICCAC triumph.

"It was a tough team win," said the veteran Kirkwood coach. "I think the kids gutted it out. It was just one of those things where you have to tough it out."

Kirkwood (20-5, 10-0) won for the ninth straight time, but did it without starters Ashley Tull and Haley Mullinnix. Tull, Kirkwood's leading scorer at just over 10 points per game, is out for the season after tearing her ACL in the Eagles' earlier win over the Blackhawks on Jan 17. Mullinnix, who has played some of her best basketball over the past couple of weeks, was injured in last Saturday's win over Little Priest.

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