Rob Gray

2-time NCAA qualifier will move up to heavyweight for junior season, focus on training and wrestling - not cutting weight

The Cedar Rapids Washington girls are Class 2A state team tennis champions for the third time after taking down West Des Moines Dowling, 5-2, on Tuesday.

When Iowa State lost its top-two scoring guards to graduation, it plucked three highly valued guards from the transfer portal. Here’s what head coach T.J. Otzelberger said about the newcomers during a Cyclone Tailgate Tour stop.

Six-foot-6 WNBA Draft pick Stephanie Soares returns to Iowa State as a graduate assistant as she continues to rehabilitate a torn ACL.

Lisbon’s boys’ track and field team won its first team title since winning three in a row from 2015-17. The girls’ 400-meter relay team won the school’s first title in the event, so in a span of about 15 minutes both Lisbon programs gave their fans a pair of milestones to savor.

Owen Douglas sprinted to a Class 2A 200-meter title Saturday during the state track and field meet at Drake Stadium, then anchored the Raiders’ gold medal-winning 400-meter relay. All those points proved to be highly consequential. Williamsburg tied Mediapolis for the 2A team crown — giving it its first state track and field team title since 2002.

Friday’s Class 2A boys’ state track and field roundup: Iowa football recruit Derek Weisskopf of Williamsburg repeated as the high jump champion.

Friday’s Class 1A state track and field roundup: Springville’s Nia Howard won the 400 hurdles, an event she nearly gave up. Midland’s Jaden Gatts won the high jump with a personal-best.

Mid-Prairie’s Danielle Hostetler powered past second-place finisher Hillary Trainor of Sumner-Fredericksburg as she entered the backstretch and never looked back, finishing in a gold-worthy time of 10:20.73 for her third straight state championship in the Class 2A 3,000-meter run.

Thursday’s Iowa Class 1A state track and field results: South Winneshiek finished second in the girls’ 3,200-meter relay at last year’s state meet, so Thursday’s top-of-the-podium effort seemed a natural, but far from effortless, progression.

Call it outlandish, implausible or a borderline miracle. Just don’t call Iowa State women’s tennis rising to elite status “impossible.”

Iowa State women’s tennis coach Boomer Saia pumped his fists and let out a subdued “Yes,” after his 12th-ranked Cyclones clinched their first NCAA Super Regionals win Friday over No. 20 UCLA at the Ames High School Tennis Complex.

Iowa State enjoyed a red-letter day at Drake Stadium, as the Cyclones claimed Drake Relays flags in three women’s events: The 400-meter shuttle hurdle relay, the distance medley relay and the 100-meter hurdles.

Iowa’s Kat Moody won the Drake Relays women’s university division discus Friday, then repeated her clutch feat to win the shot put, as well.

Former Iowa City Liberty standout Ashlyn Keeney has fully emerged from an extended stay in a self-described “valley” — and Friday the Iowa State freshman basked with her teammates atop the medal stand at the Drake Relays.