Thursday July 13th Local Sports
LOS ANGELES — University of Iowa junior guard Caitlin Clark was named the ESPY award winner for Best College Athlete, Women’s Sports on Tuesday night.
Clark was named the winner over fellow nominees Oklahoma softball player Jordy Bahl, Northwestern lacrosse player Izzy Scane and Florida gymnast Trinity Thomas. Clark was a finalist for the Female Breakthrough Athlete of the Year at the ESPYS.
Clark also won the 2023 Big Ten Female Athlete of the Year Award, Honda Cup and was named Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year by THE Collegiate Women Sports Awards (CWSA). She also won the 2023 Naismith, Wooden and Wade Trophies along with the Associated Press and USBWA Ann Drysdale Player of the Year honors.
She is also a two-time winner of the Nancy Lieberman Point Guard Award and is the first-ever three-time winner of the Dawn Staley Award. She also won the Honda Sport Award for Basketball in April.
Clark led her team to its first-ever NCAA Championship game and helped post the Hawkeye’s most wins in a single season.
Overall, Clark became the first player in Division I women’s basketball history to record more than 1,000 points and 300 assists in the same season and was the fastest Division I player (men’s or women’s) to reach 1,500 career points over the last 20 seasons.
IOWA CITY — The youngest son of University of Iowa men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery has been cited in a fatal accident.
Court records show Iowa City police cited 16-year-old Jonathan McCaffery, of North Liberty, with failure to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk.
Police say McCaffery struck 45-year-old Cory Hite of Cedar Rapids with his car not far from Iowa City West High School on May 22nd. Hite, who was a National Guard soldier, died from his injuries on June 4th.
The citation is misdemeanor, which could include a $1000 fine, and a 180-day license suspension.
IOWA CITY — Iowa sophomore Dasonte Bowen is working to get an expanded role next basketball season. The native of Boston appeared in 26 games last season and averaged nine minutes. He hopes to fill the void at point guard created by the transfer of point guard Ahron Ulis to Nebraska.
Bowen feels he is better prepared for the physical challenge of the Big Ten.
The Hawkeyes finished 19-14 last season and lost to Auburn in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.
DALLAS — Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark says the future of the conference is bright. The league enters a transition year which features new members Central Florida, Cincinnati, BYU and Houston and the final year before Texas and Oklahoma leave for the SEC.
Yormark made his comment at Big 12 Football Media Days in Dallas. It was a year ago that Yormark said the league was “open for business.”
A year ago TCU made a run to the national championship game and Yormark feels the Big 12 is poised for more success.
The league also announced it has extended its agreement with AT&T Stadium in Dallas to host the Big 12 Championship game through 2030.
IOWA CITY — The rest of the state baseball tournament field was set last night after substate finals were played in Classes 3A and 4A:
== Class 3A quarterfinals Monday in Iowa City (numbers are seeds)
11:30 — #2 North Polk vs. #7 Spencer
2:00 — #3 Marion vs. #6 Carlisle
5:00 — #1 Epworth Western Dubuque vs. #8 Harlan
7:30 — #4 Dubuque Wahlert vs. #5 Ballard
== Class 4A quarterfinals Tuesday in Iowa City
11:30 — #1 Johnston vs. #8 Iowa City Liberty
2:00 — #4 West Des Moines Dowling vs. #5 Dallas Center-Grimes
5:00 — #3 Southeast Polk vs. #6 Cedar Falls
7:30 — #2 Iowa City City High vs. #7 Ames
MASON CITY — North Iowa Area Community College’s athletics department has announced the addition of eSports to its list of sports for the 2023-24 school year, making it the school’s 18th sport. It’s the second straight academic school year that NIACC has added a sport as last year women’s wrestling was added. NIACC has named Leo Livingston as the school’s eSports coach. He’s been the eSports coach at Belmond-Klemme High School since 2020. National Junior College Athletic Association Esports was established in the fall of 2019 and had grown to 172 member schools by the 2022-23 school year. Livingston says his inaugural squad will compete in League of Legends, which is a five-versus-five multi-player online battle arena, and Overwatch 2, which is a strategic first-person shooter.
