Jeff Johnson

Center Luka Garza is the University of Iowa’s all-time leading scorer. It’s been fits and starts in his three-year professional basketball career thus far, but a two-year guaranteed NBA contract he signed last month with the Minnesota Timberwolves provides some security and a reason to continue to work to improve.

Cedar Rapids Kernels relief pitcher Nolan Santos is from Florida, pitched high school, junior college and Division I college baseball in the state. He spent most of his first two professionals seasons in Florida, too, recently being promoted to C.R. The only other time he hasn’t pitched in his home state was the summer of 2021 when he also found himself in Iowa, with the collegiate Northwoods League’s Waterloo Bucks, who are owned by the Kernels.

Here’s your 8th look at how baseball players from the Gazette area and University of Iowa are doing in the major leagues and affiliated minor leagues.

Outfielder Walker Jenkins is considered to be the top prospect in the Minnesota Twins farm system, one of the top-five overall prospects in baseball. Injured in the very first game this season, the 19-year-old outfielder is healthy and seeking to make an impact with the Cedar Rapids Kernels.

Noah Miller won a Minor League Baseball Gold Glove last year at shortstop as a member of the 2023 Midwest League champion Cedar Rapids Kernels. He returned to Veterans Memorial Stadium for the first time since the championship game Tuesday night ... as a member of the opposing Great Lakes Loons.

Sophomore Chase Fjelland hit a walk-off single in Friday night’s Class 3A championship game to beat Sioux City Heelan. The Comets won all three of their state tourney games by a run, their final five postseason games by a run.

The ECHL’s Iowa Heartlanders announced Friday an extension of their working agreement with the NHL’s Minnesota Wild. The Wild can assign contracted players to the Coralville club. Almost three dozen Heartlanders have played with the Wild’s top minor league team, the AHL’s Iowa Wild.

For the second time in three years, West Des Moines Dowling beat Iowa City High in the Class 4A semifinals of the state baseball tournament. This time around, it was a 5-1 Maroons victory.

Sioux City Heelan scored three go-ahead runs in the top of the seventh inning to topple top-ranked Dubuque Wahlert, 6-3, Wednesday night in a Class 3A state baseball tournament semifinal. Heelan’s heroics followed a pattern in which it won its substate final and semifinal in walk-off fashion.

Mason Tell’s walk-off two-run double in the bottom of the seventh inning rescued two-time defending Class 4A state baseball champion Johnston, giving the Dragons a 4-3 win over Waukee Northwest in a state tournament quarterfinal Tuesday.

The Iowa Barnstormers AAU basketball program announced it has reached a partnership with NBA players Kris and Keegan Murray and their father Kenyon, and will rebrand to Murray Elite Basketball.

Center Point-Urbana led Wamac Conference rival Marion after the first inning of their Class 3A state baseball tournament quarterfinal Monday afternoon, 2-1. But heavy rains fell, delaying the game for three hours, with Marion dominating play after it resumed and winning in five innings, 12-2.

The Gazette’s class-by-class, round-by-round predictions for the 2024 Iowa high school state baseball tournament.

The Cedar Rapids Kernels went toe to toe with the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers in a short three-game weekend series at Veterans Memorial Stadium. Wisconsin, the team with the best record in the Midwest League, won two of three games, including Sunday, 5-3.

Mason Bechen is North Linn’s best baseball player. The junior couldn’t pitch, couldn’t throw most of this season because of an arm injury. But he has returned to the mound in the postseason and has helped the Lynx (who start three eighth-graders, two freshmen and a sophomore) to the Class 1A state tournament.