Articles Tagged: Cedar Rapids Prairie High School

Girls’ basketball: Examining the regional brackets in 5A and 4A.

Girls’ basketball Super Ten: Status quo from last week to this week; Clear Creek Amana remains a firm No. 1.

Using its trademark balance — nine kids played, nine kids scored — Class 5A 10th-ranked Prairie set up a monster showdown by defeating Xavier, 58-47, in a girls’ basketball Tuesday night. The Hawks welcome No. 7 Cedar Falls on Thursday. The winner is guaranteed a share of the Mississippi Division championship.

West Liberty’s Silvia Garcia-Vasquez placed third at state last year with her lone loss coming to Sioux City North’s runner-up Molly Sek. She got revenge Thursday, pinning the top seed in the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union 115-pound state quarterfinals. Garcia-Vasquez was joined in the quarterfinals by sisters, Dionni and Bricsia.

Sigourney’s Reanah Utterback has placed at the IHSAA state tournament. She is competing in the IGHSAU state tournament this season and opened with two pins quicker than a minute Thursday morning.

It’s one of the busiest weeks of the Iowa high school wrestling season and the Pinning Combination podcast with Hall of Fame coach Dick Briggs breaks it all down. We recap last Saturday’s boys’ conference tournaments and Tuesday’s regional duals, then preview the state duals and girls’ state tournament.

On Thursday and Friday, there will be 448 wrestlers who will toe the line in hopes of becoming a state champion at the second IGHSAU girls’ state wrestling tournament at Xtream Arena in Coralville. Here are five things to watch.

Despite an overtime loss at West Des Moines Valley, Cedar Rapids Prairie continues to climb in The Gazette’s area high school girls’ basketball Super Ten rankings.

Iowa won 18 of 20 matches in duals at Illinois and Northwestern, UNI and ISU split duals on their Oklahoma tour, Augsburg got revenge in the Battle of the Burgs and Prairie won the MVC team title.

Cedar Rapids Jefferson’s Josephine Budederi never wrestled before high school but watched her brothers compete. When she got the opportunity, she didn’t hesitate. She earned her second state berth with a runner-up finish at 135 pounds Friday at the Region 5 tournament at Alliant Energy PowerHouse.

The Class 4A boys’ rankings saw a big shake-up this week (though Cedar Rapids Kennedy is still the clear No. 1) and that leads this episode of Call It Both Ways, a podcast about Iowa high school basketball.

Wrestlers on Friday will descend upon Hy-Vee Hall in Des Moines, Alliant Energy PowerHouse in Cedar Rapids, the fieldhouse at Mason City High School and Tyson Arena in Sioux City in hopes of punching a ticket to next week’s Iowa high school girls’ state wrestling tournament, Feb. 1-2 at Xtream Arena in Coralville. Here are five storylines you should watch.

Alburnett has climbed to the top of the Class 1A boys’ wrestling dual rankings. The Pirates were fourth at the 2023 state duals and will host regional duals again this season. The Wamac Conference has seven teams in the field with No. 2 Mount Vernon, West Delaware and Indpendence hosting 2A regional duals. Linn-Mar is the lone Gazette-area host in 3A.

Scenes from the Mississippi Valley Conference girls’ wrestling tournament at Prairie High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Saturday, Jan. 20, 2024.

Girls’ basketball: Balance and depth (again) are cornerstones in Cedar Rapids Prairie’s 10th straight win, 72-25 over Cedar Rapids Kennedy.