Class 1-A Semifinals 

• Akron-Westfield 1, Don Bosco 0
• Newell-Fonda 1, New London 0

Class 2-A Semifinals

• Treynor 1,  AGWSR 0
• Durant 6, Ridge View 0

Class 3-A Semifinals

• Bondurant-Farrar 3, Sergeant Bluff-Luton 2 (8)
• Clarke 17,  New Hampton 8

Class 4-A Semifinals

• Dallas Center-Grimes 10, Indianola 3
• Carlisle 11, Washington 9

Class 5-A Semifinals

• Dowling Catholic 5, Ankeny 0
• Johnston (31-11) vs. Ottumwa (37-6) – suspended until 9:30-a.m. Friday (on Diamond 2)

w/ Jim Field

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IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The University of Iowa has hired a Northern Illinois University administrator to oversee academic services for athletes. Athletic director Gary Barta named Lisa Tovar an associate athletics director Wednesday. Tovar worked in a similar job at Northern Illinois for two years after previously working as an athletic academic counselor at Ohio State.

Her hiring comes under a reorganization in which the athletics department has created separate units to oversee compliance and academic services. Previously, department official Fred Mims oversaw both functions but Mims was reassigned last year amid questions about the school’s handling of sexual harassment allegations against a counselor.

Barta says he’s impressed by Tovar’s passion for helping student-athletes and working with coaches. Last week, Barta named Arizona State administrator Lyla Clerry to oversee compliance with NCAA regulations.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources says the number of pheasants shot by hunters increased 45-percent in 2012 after a record low year in 2011. D-N-R spokesman, Willie Suchy, says they expected an increase based on the roadside survey last August. “We were very pleased last year to see a good nesting season and when we have good nesting seasons and good winters, the small game numbers like pheasants and quail respond. And we had an increase in harvest and an increase the number of hunters taking advantage of that,” Suchy says.

It’s estimated hunters shot 158-thousand pheasants in 2012. That compares to 109-thousand pheasants harvested in 2011 — which was the lowest number since the state began keeping track in 1962. Suchy says the pheasant population has seemed to be stuck in a bad cycle that hasn’t allowed the birds to recover. “We’ve had bad winters and bad springs in the past, but the thing that has really happened over the last five or six years is that we’ve had a string of them together. Usually after two or three bad ones you get a couple three good ones, and we just haven’t had that. Last year was the first year that we did,” Suchy says. “Unfortunately this year, we had a little bit snowier winter and then a wet spring, so we are not so optimistic going forward.”

Pheasants weren’t the only game hunters had success with as Bobwhite quail, mourning dove, cottontail and squirrel harvest estimates increased as well. “All small game kind so have the same sort of guiding things — habitat, weather — affect them,” Suchy says. He says better weather increases all their population numbers. Better animal numbers also led to a five-percent increase in the number of small game hunters last year. The impact of this year’s snowy winter and wet spring will become more clear next week when the D-N-R conducts its annual roadside pheasant survey.

(Radio Iowa)

Class 3-A Substate Final
Harlan 7, Glenwood 1
Bishop Heelan Catholic 7, LeMars 0 (Forfeit)

Class 4-A Substate Final
Sioux City East 7, Sioux City North 6

Class 1-A Consolation:

• Lynnville-Sully 8, Janesville 0
• Remsen St. Mary’s 18, Martensdale-St. Marys 11 (8)
• 5th Place – Lynnville-Sully 4, Remsen St. Marys 3
• 7th Place – Martensdale-St. Marys 11, Janesvile 2

Class 2-A Consolation:

• Jesup 2, Iowa City Regina 0
• Fort Dodge St. Edmond 4, Lawton-Bronson 2
• 5th Place – Jesup 4, Fort Dodge St. Edmond 3
• 7th Place – Iowa City Regina 5, Lawton-Bronson 2

Class 3-A Consolation:

• Estherville-Lincoln Central 11, Monticello 5
• Mid-Prairie 8, East Marshall 3
• 5th Place – Mid-Prairie 6, Estherville-Lincoln Central 2
• 7th Place – Monticello 7, East Marshall 6 (8)

Class 4-A Consolation:

• Winterset 12, Denison-Schleswig 1 (5)
• Solon 10, Waverly-Shell Rock 0 (5)
• 5th Place – Winterset 7, Solon 4
• 7th Place – Waverly-Shell Rock 10, Denison 6

Class 5-A Consolation:

• Cedar Rapids Prairie 5, Dubuque Senior 4 (11)
• Cedar Rapids Jefferson 2, West Des Moines Valley 1 (8)
• 5th Place – Cedar Rapids Jefferson 4, Cedar Rapids Prairie 1
• 7th Place – Dubuque Senior 3, WDM Valley 0

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (AP) — Tony Moeaki spent most of the Kansas City Chiefs’ offseason workouts watching from the sideline with a baseball cap on his head. Donnie Avery did the same thing. They’re both happy to have a helmet on instead.