The Atlantic Community School District has hired Carrie BreDahl for the Head Girls’ Track position at Atlantic High School. Carrie comes to Atlantic from the Iowa Falls-Alden School District where she held the position of Middle School Math Teacher, Head Girls’ Cross Country Coach, and Assistant Girls’ Track Coach. Carrie will be teaching Math at the Atlantic Middle School.  BreDahl succeeds longtime coach Bruce Henderson, who retired after last season.  Henderson led the Trojanns to seven state team titles, including four in a row from 1998-2001.

Chalk up another “W” for Cathy Carter. The Council Bluffs woman captured her 31^st Class A Iowa State Women’s Horseshoe pitching Championship earlier this week, in Des Moines. The Omaha World-Herald reports Carter, a former Class-B Champion who moved up to Class-A this year, won the title 30 years in a row before being sidelined last year by a broken ankle. Her victory during Sunday’s competition came over last year’s winner, Shirley Fletcher, who placed second in the event.

Carter, a lifelong resident of Council Bluffs, owns cleaning business in the community. She’s a winner in another area, as well. Two weeks ago, Carter became engaged to Joe Jones.

Hunting licenses for deer went on sale for the first time Wednesday and a D-N-R spokesman says the number of “deer tags” available is dropping in some areas. Deer research biologist Tom Litchfield, says efforts to reduce the deer herd by increasing the number of female or antlerless deer taken have been successful. “Back in 2003 the availability of antlerless licenses was greatly increased in Iowa, and now in 2012 approximately two-thirds of the counties in Iowa are at the target levels, which was to return deer populations back to the mid to late 1990 levels,” Litchfield explained. Litchfield says the drop in deer numbers will be reflected in the available licenses.

“There’s going to be approximately 13-thousand fewer antlerless only licenses available, and these reductions all occurred in eastern Iowa counties — 20 eastern counties — so there will be fewer antlerless licenses available in those counties,” Litchfield says. He says the cutback is a direct result of the success of the plan to harvest more does to help bring down the overall deer population. “It’s do to our deer herd declining in numbers and being at goal throughout most of the state,” Litchfield says. There will also be a change in the combination of licenses available.

“Starting this year we’re starting to go back to the way regulations were prior to 2006, so for 2012, a hunter who purchases an early muzzleloader license will not be able to purchase an antlerless only license in either of the two shotgun seasons,” according to Litchfield. Not all counties are down to their goals for deer numbers, so Litchfield says the hunting numbers will vary based on regions.”Hunters in the northwestern and the north-central portions of the state will see deer numbers similar to what they saw last year, possibly a few more since we had such a nice mild winter,” Litchfield says. “Throughout the remainder of the state — eastern Iowa, southern Iowa, central Iowa — by and large, what hunters will see are fewer deer than last year because the herd is still declining.”

The D-N-R is also eliminating the Thanksgiving weekend antlerless season and cutting the late January season by one week. You can find out more about the deer hunting seasons and where to buy a license on the D-N-R’s website at: www.iowadnr.gov.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Coach Jeff Fisher might add a few more plays to the game plan for the St. Louis Rams’ second preseason game. However, players know they can be a lot better, too. Middle linebacker James Laurinaitis said it’s not about the calls, but how they’ll be executed in the Governor’s Cup game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Saturday night. Running back Steven Jackson said an offense only needs one play to score. The Rams were dominated on both sides of the ball in a 38-3 rout at Indianapolis last week in a matchup of two-win teams that tied for the NFL’s worst record in 2011. Jackson noted the Rams were unbeaten in the preseason last year and it did not serve as a launching pad for the regular season. Jackson, like the rest of the team, wants to see improvements all over whether or not the offense is vanilla. Fisher said most players will probably go a little deeper into the game, perhaps a series or so. But he said the approach still would be pretty conservative.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina was held out of the starting lineup for the second game in a row Thursday night because of tightness in his back. Molina, who is hitting .312 with 16 homers and 54 RBIs, is hoping to return to the lineup sometime this weekend. The Cardinals host Pittsburgh in a three-game series beginning today (Friday). Molina felt discomfort prior to Tuesday’s game but played the first eight innings before he was replaced by Tony Cruz. Cruz was in the starting lineup Thursday, batting seventh against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz doesn’t mind if people think the Hawkeyes are boring.

He doesn’t like the perception that Iowa has become average. Iowa has gone 4-4 in the Big Ten the past two seasons and just 15-11 overall.

The departure of both of coordinators led to the most turbulent offseason of his 13-year tenure at Iowa.

Longtime Texas offensive coordinator Greg Davis was brought in to overhaul an offense that will be led by senior quarterback James Vandenberg. He threw for 25 touchdowns and just seven interceptions a year ago.

The Hawkeyes open the season at Chicago’s Soldier Field against Northern Illinois on Sept. 1.

w/ Jim Field

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