As the sports world turns …
Athletes from Iowa provided great moments well beyond the basketball court
So you’ve got that Indiana Fever jersey ordered and have sent the “Saturday Night Live” link to everyone in your contacts. And it hits you that, for now, the madness of basketball season is over.
But, alas, life goes on. In fact, it went on very nicely beyond the basketball court. As the dust bunnies grew and grew under all the furniture because you were too busy watching hoops to start spring cleaning, other sports chugged away because they had been there all along.
And it was a pretty fun stretch for a lot of local non-basketball athletes. Here’s but a sampling of some of the things that happened while most of Iowa was going nuts for the Hawkeyes. I’m not saying that wasn’t a worthy thing to pay attention to, just that you (and everyone else) might have missed some good stuff.
Track and field
The indoor season provided some amazing moments for female athletes in the state – with more to come because the outdoor season is just starting to kick in. Drake Relays begin next week, then come conference and NCAA meets.
Iowa State’s Sydney Willits won the long jump national championship at the NCAA indoor meet on March 9 in Boston. It was a surprise victory – Willits came into the meet seeded 12th and her leap of 22-1½ was a full foot farther than her career best.
“I just felt like I was flying,” she said afterward.
In Division III, Loras’ Grace Alley put on a show worthy of a Wheaties box to help the Duhawks win the national title. First, Alley won the pentathlon – the 60-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, long jump and 800 meters. If that weren’t enough, she also won the individual high jump while also finishing fourth in the triple jump, 10th in the long jump and ran a leg on the team’s title-clinching sixth-place finish in the 4x400 relay.
That’s nine events in all, not counting qualifying heats and rounds. Afterward, she went into hibernation and has yet to wake up. Well, not really. She just kept going when the outdoor season began and has the top national heptathlon total in Division III this spring.
Both Willits and Alley will compete at Drake next week. Alley will not be in the seven-event heptathlon; she’ll be in a “mere” four events – the high jump, triple jump and the Duhawks’ 4x100 and 4x400 relays.
Wrestling
It wasn’t a huge surprise when Iowa won the national title, maybe only slightly so because it was the program’s first year of competition. Wrestling fans should get used to the vise grip the Hawkeyes are going to have on the national titles; as the only so-called Power 5 school to offer the sport for women, Iowa is going to have its pick of the nation’s best recruits until other big schools come along.
Next for the team are the Olympic trials. Nine Hawkeyes will compete in the trials this weekend at Penn State. Iowa’s best shot is sophomore national champion Kylie Welker, seeded second. She was runner-up for an Olympic spot the last time around when she was just 17.
In the NAIA tournament, William Penn finished fourth, Grand View fifth. William Penn crowned three champions: Mia Palumbo, Adaugo Nwachukwu and Ashley Lekas. Palumbo and Nwachukwu will also be at the Olympic trials.
Gymnastics
The NCAA gymnastics meet is this weekend, with the finals televised at 3 p.m. on Saturday on ABC. While there will be no Iowa schools represented at the meet, they were there early on.
Iowa had four individuals compete at the regional level: Karina Munoz in the all-around, Ilka Juk on the balance beam and Emily Erb and Bailey Libby on the floor exercise.
Iowa State qualified for the NCAAs as a team, advancing to the second round. Noelle Adams qualified in three events: vault, balance beam and floor exercise. Josie Bergstrom competed in the vault and beam, and Kaia Parker competed in the floor exercise.
In Division III, one of the goals for Simpson in just its second year of competition was to qualify a gymnast in the national meet. The Red Storm met that goal when freshman Emma Charles competed in the vault at the NGCA National Championships last month.
Swimming
Aurora Roghair, a Stanford junior from Iowa City, did her part to help the Cardinal remain the only team to never finish out of the top 10 at the NCAA meet since 1982 (they finished third to champion Virginia). Roghair finished second in the 1,650 freestyle. By shaving 5 seconds off her personal best, Roghair sits third in the Stanford record books. Ahead of her are Katie Ledecky and Janet Evans. Maybe you’ve heard of them.
High school basketball
The Dike-New Hartford girls cemented their place in history with their fourth consecutive state title (and a senior class that also won three volleyball titles). But another power is entering the proverbial ring: Johnston. The Dragons have played in the Class 5A (large-school) title game five years in a row, winning three.
One coach attending the state tournament knows a thing or two about budding dynasties: Dawn Staley, coach of reigning NCAA women’s champion South Carolina. Staley and assistant (and former Iowa Hawkeye) Jolette Law were there to watch Davenport North junior Divine Bourrage. Bourrage got an offer from Staley the next day, one of many the guard has received from major schools. Bourrage’s Class of 2025 teammate, Journey Houston, has already committed to Iowa.
It was Staley who back in the 1990s was asked at a Final Four roundtable on women’s professional basketball about when they should play – fall/winter like the colleges or summer, when it could stand alone and not compete with the international leagues.
Staley, then a woman of few words, leaned in to the microphone and said, simply, “Basketball season.”
Well, after a whole month away, basketball season is almost back. And for those who want to know, the Indiana Fever open their preseason on May 3 against the Dallas Wings.
Jane Burns is a former sports and features writer for the Des Moines Register, as well as other publications and websites. She’s a past winner of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s Mel Greenberg Award for her coverage of women’s basketball. Over the course of her career she’s covered pretty much everything, which is why her as-yet-to-be-written memoir will be called “Cheese and Basketball: Stories From a Reporter Who Has Covered Everything.”
Iowa Writers’ Collaborative
I’m happy to join fellow Iowa writers and journalists as part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. To receive a roundup of the week’s columns, subscribe to the Collaborative’s Sunday email.
Thanks, Jane!