Ryan Pleggenkuhle

Marion, led by senior Jacob Shaffer, took home first place in Saturday’s 18-team (all classes) Independence Baker Tournament at Cadillac XBC in Waterloo. The Wolves have big goals for the postseason.

At the junior college level, NJCAA student-athletes have two years of eligibility, making this season essentially the first without ‘COVID year’ eligible players. It’s something Kirkwood women’s basketball coach Kim Muhl and his staff are feeling.

Miranda Nolte, a senior and 2023 state qualifier, hopes future generations of Saints can share the same enjoyment in the Cedar Rapids Xavier bowling program she’s had. With the scores Nolte and the Saints are putting up this season, there’s reason to believe her legacy will live on.

Cedar Rapids Prairie’s boys’ bowling team is 4-0, took first in the Prairie Boys Baker Invitational on Dec. 16 and lead Class 3A in score per match at 3,185 — 30.2 points higher than the next closest team, Waukee. The Hawks want to qualify for state as a team for the first time since 2020.

Solon student Carson Reid has bowled across the country, but he wants the state tournament to be his next destination.

As the 2023-24 season unfolds, the Decorah bowling program finds itself in familiar, yet new territory. The Vikings sit atop the Northeast Iowa Conference standings, but this season makes the first in program history without a Bruening on the roster.

The Vinton-Shellsburg boys’ bowling team was state runner-up last season and hopes to take that final step in 2024.

Iowa City High senior Kendra Schwarting gave reason for the buzz inside May City Bowl in Cedar Rapids on Dec. 1 as she became the first to throw a 300 in this year’s Iowa high school girls’ bowling season.

NXTPRO, founded in 2021, is one of the nation’s largest basketball grassroots platforms and shoe circuits, operating more than 35 tournaments throughout the year. It’s a circuit the Iowa Barnstormers, a Corridor-based AAU basketball program, will compete in again this spring, this time under Puma’s administration.

Despite leading all Class 3A girls' bowling teams in pins per match last season, Cedar Rapids Kennedy fell short of making it to the state tournament. Now, the Cougars are determined to right the ship.

A look at some of the top Gazette-area teams and bowlers to watch in the 2023-24 Iowa high school bowling season.

Independence returns four of its top six bowlers from a team that finished fifth in last year’s Class 2A state tournament.

If it isn’t broken, don’t pass it. That’s the approach East Buchanan took in its 38-7 rout of fifth-ranked Lisbon Friday night in a Class A second-round prep football playoff game. The Buccaneers, led by “thunder and lightning” backs Tanner Thurn and Hunter Bowers, rushed for 379 yards. All their offensive yards came on the ground.

Edgewood-Colesburg had climbed to a height the volleyball program hadn’t reached since 2005 — a regional final match. Fort Madison Holy Trinity denied the Vikings a trip to state with a sweep.

The Class 3A seventh-rated Center Point-Urbana volleyball team is state tournament bound for the first time since 2015 after defeating No. 12 Mid-Prairie (32-13) in four sets (25-23, 17-25, 25-17, 25-21) Tuesday night at Center Point.