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Midwest Sports Headlines: 5/10/18

Sports

May 10th, 2018 by Ric Hanson

Here is the latest Mid-America sports news from The Associated Press

BALTIMORE (AP) — Mark Trumbo delivered a tiebreaking, two-run single in the eighth inning, Chris Davis homered and the Baltimore Orioles beat the Kansas City Royals 5-3 to end a seven-game losing streak. Jonathan Schoop had two hits and scored twice for the Orioles, who lost 18 of their previous 21 games.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The last time the major leagues saw Miles Mikolas before this season, the right-hander was learning how to become a starting pitcher with the Texas Rangers. That was in 2014. Mikolas then spent three years in Japan. It has paid off for the 29-year-old and the St. Louis Cardinals, who signed Mikolas to a $15.5 million, two-year contract during the offseason. Entering Wednesday’s games, Mikolas was 10th in the National League with a 2.70 ERA.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Chiefs have promoted Mike Borgonzi to director of football operations and Ryan Poles to assistant director of player personnel as part of a series of front-office moves made following the NFL draft. Three scouts have also been promoted and Mike Bradway has been hired from Philadelphia as an assistant director of player personnel.

Iowa early News Headlines: Thursday, May 10th 2018

News

May 10th, 2018 by Ric Hanson

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:30 a.m. CDT

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A top aide to Gov. Kim Reynolds has been hired by Apple months after helping promote a controversial $208 million incentive package for the company’s planned Iowa data center as a good deal for taxpayers. Tim Albrecht resigned as Reynolds’ deputy chief of staff, then began in March as a manager of strategic initiatives for Apple. The governor’s office says Albrecht’s position is “unrelated” to the $1.3 billion complex the company is building outside Des Moines.

MT. PLEASANT, Iowa (AP) — Federal immigration officials have raided a precast concrete manufacturing plant in southeastern Iowa. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers took 32 people at Midwest Precast Concrete in Mount Pleasant into custody Wednesday on suspicion of immigration violations. The agency says those detained came from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico.

MASON CITY, Iowa (AP) — Health officials in northern Iowa have confirmed seven cases of whooping cough in Cerro Gordo County. Mason City television station KIMT reports that the Cerro Gordo County Department of Public Health says it’s investigating instances of the highly contagious disease in the Mason City Community School District and among staff at a local McDonald’s restaurant.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa agency that promotes affordable housing has suspended the use of employee credit cards that were issued outside the state’s normal program. The move by the Iowa Finance Authority comes as the agency faces investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and questionable financial practices by its former director, Dave Jamison. Documents show that 21 employees of the agency had been issued Visa credit cards through Wells Fargo to cover travel, meeting and other expenses.

Kuemper Catholic wins Tennis District Title at Denison

Sports

May 9th, 2018 by admin

The Kuemper Catholic Knights won the District Tennis Tournament at Denison on Wednesday. The Knights racked up 23 points to advance to the Sub-State they will host on May 19th.

In singles play St. Albert’s Reed Miller was the champion with a finals win over Tanner Finken of Kuemper Catholic 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. Both will move on to State in Waterloo.

In doubles action Keumper Catholic’s Cam Pille and Justin Schroeder won the title with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Denison-Schleswig’s Jaden Heiden and Sean Moran. Both duos will head to State as well.

Denison-Schleswig scored 17 points on the day and will now host St. Albert in a Preliminary Sub-State match on Saturday. The Falcons scored 13 points to finish 3rd on Wednesday.

High School Sports Scoreboard Wednesday 05/09/2018

Sports

May 9th, 2018 by admin

Girls Soccer

Atlantic 3, AHSTW 2 (Completion of game stopped by lightning)
Lewis Central 10, Denison-Schleswig 0

Girls Tennis

Shenandoah 7, Denison-Schleswig 2

Girls Golf

Missouri River Conference Tournament:

  1. Sioux City East 355
  2. Abraham Lincoln 367
  3. Bishop Heelan 387
  4. Sioux City North 441
  5. Thomas Jefferson 442
  6. Sergeant Bluff-Luton 457
  7. Sioux City West NTS

Medalist: Kirsten Stykes, Sioux City East, 83.
Runner-Up: Madyson Frichter, Abraham Lincoln, 83

Atlantic boys win Class 1A District Tennis Title

Sports

May 9th, 2018 by admin

The Atlantic boys tennis team took the title at the Class 1A District Tennis Tournament they hosted on Wednesday. The Trojans notched 21 points on the day to run away from the pack. Creston was 2nd with 14 points and Clarinda was 3rd with 13 points.

The Atlantic doubles team of Grant Podhajsky and Cooper McDermott earned a return trip to the State Tournament with a runner-up finish Wednesday. The duo placed 8th at state a year ago. Atlantic’s Nile Petersen also qualified for State in singles play with a District Championship. He earned his way to the final and then was awarded the title after his opponent forfeited the final match due to cramping issues.

Atlantic will move on to Sub-State play as a team on May 19th at Kuemper Catholic. Creston will host Clarinda in a Preliminary Sub-State match this Saturday to determine which of them will join Atlantic in Carroll.

Full match results can be found here: Boys_Districts_2018

Atlantic tabs Jeff Ebling new Boys Head Basketball Coach

Sports

May 9th, 2018 by admin

The Atlantic High School and Atlantic Activities Department announced on Wednesday evening that Jeff Ebling will be the next Head Boys Basketball Coach, pending board approval.

Ebling comes to Atlantic from Norwalk where he has been an assistant coach for the past three years. His other coaching stops included 1 year as an assistant at Greene High School, 7 years in Ottumwa as an assistant, 2 years as head coach at Fairfield, and 4 years as an assistant at Des Moines Roosevelt.  He has been a part of three state tournament teams including last season with Norwalk.

Ebling is a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa with a bachelors degree in elementary and middle level education. He also obtained a masters degree in coaching and athletic administration from Concordia University-Irvine. He has been teaching at the middle school level for the past 16 years. Mr. Ebling will teach social studies at Atlantic Middle School starting in the fall of 2018.

Jeff and his wife Erin plan to move to Atlantic as soon as possible. Erin Ebling will be teaching English/Language Arts at Atlantic Middle School next fall.

The school stated “Coach Ebling’s experiences and background will be a great asset to the Trojan basketball program. He is looking forward to meeting with the players and working with them and the basketball staff in the near future.”

Ebling takes over for Alan Jenkins who recently announced he is leaving to become the Head Boys Basketball Coach at Southeast Polk High School.

Atlantic’s Nile Petersen qualifies for 1A State Tennis

Sports

May 9th, 2018 by admin

Atlantic’s Nile Petersen has qualified for the Class 1A State Tennis Tournament. Petersen picked up a semi-final win in Atlantic over JD Hitt of Clarinda 6-2, 6-0. Creston’s Dustin Merritt then forfeited the final due to cramping, making Petersen the District champion. Meritt advanced to the final with a 3-set win over Atlantic’s Kalob Flory in the semis. Merritt defeated Flory 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-4 to earn a state berth.

Petersen will compete in the Class 1A State Tournament in Waterloo on May 25th and 26th. His teammates Grant Podhajsky and Cooper McDermott had already qualified for state in doubles play earlier in the day.

Atlantic clinched the District Title as a team as well and will head to Sub-State competition on May 19th at Kuemper Catholic. That Sub-State site will include winning teams from the Atlantic and Denison District sites.

Snowmelt runoff very high but no flooding expected on Missouri River

News, Weather

May 9th, 2018 by Ric Hanson

While the Mississippi River is rising and starting to flood along Iowa’s eastern border, flooding is not a big worry on the state’s west side. Heavy snows this winter — and spring — are forcing the U-S Army Corps of Engineers to increase flows into the Missouri River, now that the snow is melting. Corps hydraulic engineer Nicole Shorney says they expect runoff much higher than usual.

“April runoff was 182% of average above Sioux City,” Shorney says. “Runoff was above average partly due to the heavy Plains snowpack in Montana melting. Mountain snowpack accumulation has peaked in both reaches.” Corps engineer Joel Knofczynski says they still have plenty of storage space in the reservoir system to handle the runoff.

“Reservoir system storage is currently 60.9 million acre feet or 4.8 million acre feet into the 16.3 million acre feet of available flood storage,” Knofczynski says. He notes they expect to ramp up outflows in the next couple of weeks. The average release from Gavins Point Dam during April was around 34-thousand cubic feet per second.

“Due to the higher-than-average runoff being forecast in the Missouri River basin above Sioux City, the service level has been increased 15,000 cubic feet per second above full service to facilitate the evacuation of stored floodwaters. As downstream flows recede, Gavins Point releases will be increased to about 42,000 cfps by around mid-May.” Even with the increased releases, Corps officials say river levels below Gavins Point Dam should stay well below flood stage.

(Radio Iowa)

DOT 5 year plan includes interstates, Highway 20 completion

News

May 9th, 2018 by Ric Hanson

The draft five-year transportation improvement plan that covers spending on all forms of transportation was presented to the Iowa Transportation Commission at their meeting Tuesday. Three-point-four BILLION dollars of the program goes for the state roadways and D-O-T spokesman Stuart Anderson says that includes a lot of ongoing work on the interstates.

“Probably the most significant projects on the interstates right now are what we would call modernization projects — so its totally reconstructing the interstate systems in Council Bluffs and Sioux City to meet modern design standards and to address increased traffic,” Anderson says. Another interstate project adds a segment to the work on the highway between Ankeny and Ames.

“This draft program does include the addition of reconstruction and improving I-35 from the north end of Ankeny up to Iowa 210 as you head towards Ames,” Anderson says. There are also several projects on non-interstate highway.

“We expect to complete the four-lanning of U-S 20 in western Iowa by this fall,” according to Anderson. “So that’ll complete the four-lane constructon of U-S 20 across the entire state. That’s been a project that’s been underway for many years.” Other state highway corridors are also in the plan.

“This five-year program continues work on four-lane improvements on U-S 30 in Tama and Benton County. And also U-S 61 down in southeast Iowa. So, significant corridor work will be continuing,” Anderson explains. Anderson says part of the funding comes form the gas tax increase.

He says this program includes a little more than 500 million dollars of the fuel tax increase implemented in March of 2015. The Transportation Commission will take a vote on the program next month. He says the plan is available on the D-O-T website for any comment and the commission will act on final approval during their business meeting on June 12th. Anderson says the years in this program have been some of the top years for the number of road construction projects.

(Radio Iowa)

Federal immigration agents raid southeast Iowa plant

News

May 9th, 2018 by Ric Hanson

MT. PLEASANT, Iowa (AP) — Federal immigration officials have raided a precast concrete manufacturing plant in southeastern Iowa. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers took an unknown number of people at Midwest Precast Concrete in Mount Pleasant into custody Wednesday.

The federal Justice Department said in a news release that special agents and deportation officers with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security executed a search warrant, along with help from local law enforcement. The department said there is “no threat to the public,” and said it would not comment further until court documents in the case had been filed.