Southwest Valley’s Kenzie Maeder is heading to state! Maeder finished as the regional champ with a perfect 3-0 record and is going to state with an overall record of 51-3. She is making her second appearance at the state tournament and is the lone girl’s wrestler from Southwest Valley moving on. Maeder will enter Coralville as the number 3 seed in the 145 division. It took Kenzie a while to even begin as a wrestler, but Coach Derek Maeder is impressed in how she adapted to the sport and continues to improve.

Despite missing her freshman year, Maeder has grown into a great “lead by example” wrestler. While not being the most outspoken girl on the team, Coach Maeder praises Kenzie on her ability to let her game do the talking and being an inspiration for other girls on the team:

State Tournament’s in any sport can make or break an athlete. The win or go home scenario puts a lot of pressure on the coach and wrestler, but Coach Maeder doesn’t think that Kenzie has to approach the state tournament with any different mindset than she has all season.

As far as how Coach Derek Maeder sees things from the sideline, he doesn’t think he needs to do anything extra as a coach to get Kenzie prepared for what his one of the biggest wrestling matches of her High School career.

Kenzie Maeder will face off against Addie Koenig of Pleasantville High School in the first round on February 5th to begin her journey to a State Title.

The Northern Iowa women are on the road in Missouri Valley Conference play Thursday night to take on Bradley. The Panthers are Braves are both 7-4 in the league race and part of a three-way tie for third.

That’s UNI coach Tanya Warren, who says Bradley will be a tough test.

Despite keeping the game close in the first half, a rough second half derailed the Griswold Tigers’ 5-game win streak as they fell to the Sidney Cowgirls 55-31 on Tuesday night. Although the defense played well throughout the game, it was the offense that struggled for Griswold. Despite scoring just 10 points in the first half, their skill and aggressiveness of their defense held them in the game. However, things changed in the second half as Sideny exploded in the third quarter to blow open the game. Although Amanda Houser had a strong effort in the final frame, it did little to change the outcome as Griswold’s win streak came to an end.

Head coach Aaron Houser gave his thoughts on what happened in the second half.

He did like the effort from the defense, but knows that the offense has to play complimentary basketball.

Heading into the post season, Houser’s message to the team was to put this one in the rear-view mirror.

Griswold will have a chance to get back in the win column Friday, when they travel to Stanton. The girls game will tip off at 6:00 pm.

Hawkeye Ten Conference 

Glenwood – 62 vs Clarinda – 49

Western Iowa Conference 

Audubon – 61 vs Riverside – 42

Treynor – 59 vs AHSTW – 26

Underwood – 69 vs Tri-Center – 58

IKM-Manning – 64 vs Missouri Valley – 52

Corner Conference 

Griswold – 48 vs Sidney – 31

Stanton – 57 vs Hamburg – 48

East Mills – 63 vs Bedford – 52

Fremont-Mills – 70 vs Essex – 34

Pride of Iowa Conference 

Southwest Valley – 63 vs Lenox – 44

Nodaway Valley – 65 vs East Union – 59

Rolling Valley Conference 

Boyer Valley – 66 vs CAM – 56

Coon Rapids-Bayard – 69 vs Ar-We-Va – 47

West Central Activities Conference 

ACGC – 64 vs West Central Valley – 55

Non-Conference 

Storm Lake – 73 vs Denison-Schleswig – 26

Hawkeye Ten Conference 

Glenwood – 55 vs Clarinda – 42

Corner Conference 

Sidney – 55 vs Griswold – 31

Stanton – 54 vs Hamburg – 23

East Mills – 51 vs Bedford – 31

Fremont-Mills – 63 vs Essex – 35

Western Iowa Conference 

Treynor 67 vs AHSTW – 40

Underwood – 38 vs Tri-Center – 36

IKM-Manning – 59 vs Missouri Valley – 54

Rolling Valley Conference 

CAM – 50 vs Boyer Valley – 35

Coon Rapids-Bayard – 57 vs Ar-We-Va – 10

Pride of Iowa Conference 

Southwest Valley – 51 vs Lenox – 26

Nodaway Valley – 76 vs East Union – 30

West Central Activities Conference 

ACGC – 46 vs West Central Valley – 30

Non-Conference 

Storm Lake – 61 vs Denison-Schleswig – 33

2A AT SERGEANT BLUFF-LUTON

Glenwood – 44 vs Atlantic – 31

Glenwood – 40 vs Sergeant Bluff-Luton – 29

Glenwood Advances

Individual 

Atlantic – Keaton Schroeder, Braxton Hass, Landon Hagen, Jayden Harter, Dreven Smith, Donovan Hedrington

1A AT RIVERSIDE

Earlham – 42 vs Interstate-35 – 32

Riverside – 45 vs Earlham – 31

Riverside Advances

Individual 

Riverside – Colton Hering, Kingston Carrigan, Drew Anderson, Mason Houser, Jaxon Gordon, Max Shanno, Jackson Allen, Gaven Hackett

1A AT LOGAN-MAGNOLIA 

West Sioux – 51 vs Nodaway Valley – 24

Logan Magnolia – 56 vs West Sioux – 14

Logan-Magolia Advances

Individual

Nodaway Valley – Josh Nelson, Keyin Steve, Caleb Christensen, Ashton Honnold

QUAD AT EAST SAC COUNTY 

Tri-Center – 36 vs East Sac County – 30

MVAOCOU – 36 vs Tri-Center – 30

Woodbine – 48 vs Tri-Center – 24

Woodbine – 48 vs East Sac County – 27

Woodbine – 54 vs MVAOCOU – 24

East Sac County – 48 vs MVAOCOU – 30

Individual

Tri-Center – Tucker Olsen (3), Owen Good (3), Noah Goodwin (3), Carter Gittens (2), Christopher Rock (2), Judah York (2),

Drake could not find a way to slow down Missouri Valley leader Belmont. The Bruins shot a sizzling 59 percent and made 17 three pointers to beat the Bulldogs 103-90 in Nashville.

That’s Drake coach Eric Henderson. The Bulldogs connected on 53 percent but 12 turnovers proved costly.

The Bulldogs fall to 12-12 overall and 6-7 in the Valley.

Iowa wrestling coach Tom Brands would like to see his team become more fanatical as the Hawkeyes try to turn their season around. The fifth ranked Hawkeyes take a 9-4 dual to second ranked Ohio State Friday night. The four losses are the most for the program since 2012.

Brands feels there is a lot of room for improvement.

It will be their second dual against Ohio State this season. The Buckeyes beat the Hawkeyes 27-12 at the National Duals in mid-November.

The Griswold Tigers benefited from a dominant second half effort en route to a 48-31 victory over the Sidney Cowboys Tuesday night. Despite it being a 20-19 game at half, Griswold stepped their foot on the gas and outscored Sidney 20-1 in the third quarter and never looked back. All night, the Tigers were stepping into passing lanes and using their size to their advantage. They turned what was a close game through two quarters into a blowout by the start of the fourth. Three Tigers finished in double digits in scoring which was the difference in the ball game. Great team basketball helped Griswold collect their second win of the season with the playoffs fast approaching.

The first half was fueled by an impressive performance from Dain Laverty, who poured in three three-pointers and added another two to lead all Tigers with 11 points at the half. Although they depended a lot on the performance of Laverty, it would require a collaborative effort to pull away later in the game. For Sidney it was very similar in the first half. Joseph Lutz was on fire to end the 2nd quarter which included a buzzer beater to pull within one point at half. He had 13 points in the first half. Griswold scored evenly between both of the first two quarters, scoring 10 points in each. The defense of the Tigers on everyone not named Joseph Lutz was a sign that all they had to do was stay consistent on the offensive end and put together a few defensive stops. Despite Griswold looking like the more well rounded team, it was still only a one point game.

To start the second half, it was apparent that Griswold went away from being a one man show and decided to get everyone involved. They also started to put together defensive stop and plenty of them. The defense they played was almost perfect, allowing only 1 point in the third quarter which came off of a singular free throw. Griswold combined the great defense with efficient offense, equaling their total from the first half in just the third quarter. By the beginning of the fourth quarter, the score had ballooned into 40-20 in favor of the Tigers. The biggest difference in the second half from the first was the involvement of Brayden Lockwood, who put up 14 points in the second half. Griswold ran a lot of offense through him that let Lockwood work near the rim and use a variety of layups to get to the rim. Sidney eventually ran out of gas after the third quarter and didn’t put up much fight in the fourth. Griswold cruised to a 48-31 victory for their 2nd win of the season. Head Coach Ryan Lockwood was pleased with his team’s effort and execution on Tuesday.

Coach Lockwood loved the ball movement paired with the effort shown by his guys:

He was proud of how Brayden Lockwood performed in the second half:

This win moves Griswold to 2-16 on the season. Their next matchup is against Stanton High School on Friday, February 6th at 7:30pm.