CENTER POINT— Anamosa and Center Point-Urbana, the two new teams from the Tri-Rivers Conference added to the powerful WaMaC this fall, were officially anointed into the league Tuesday, September 4, playing each other in a volleyball match in Center Point.

“It didn’t really feel like a WaMaC game,” said Anamosa volleyball coach Angie Lawrence. “We are very familiar with Center Point-Urbana and they have been one of the top teams in the Tri-Rivers Conference the entire time we were in that league. Now we’re both in the WaMaC and I guess the league wanted us to play each other for our first conference match.”

Anamosa (0-6, 0-1) was handed a 17-25, 12-25, 15-25 setback at the hands of the host Pointers.

“We played some solid volleyball in the first game and hung in there the best we could,” said Lawrence. “The girls were hustling and working hard, but it just came down to us making more mistakes than they did and it showed in the final scores.”

MONTICELLO — A picturesque course on the Monticello Camp Courageous grounds saw more breathtaking running from the Anamosa cross country team.

The Raider girls placed third at the meet scoring 73 points and trailed the host Panthers’ 36-point total as Monticello won their own meet championship.

“We ran better on the girls’ side but we did not compete very well,” said Raider cross country coach Phil Kauder as his team defeated Central DeWitt (92 points), Beckman (112), Ed-Co, Springville, Central City and Center Point-Urbana at the nine-team meet. “Cammy and Kayla let the two Monticello girls get away from them early on and never really were in the race. Kellie Vaughn had a super finish as she almost caught both Kayla and Cammy at the end. The Monticello girls should not beat our top runner by one minute.”

A new course faced runners this year as Sanborn paced the Raider girls finishing sixth overall with a time of 18:07 while Dole was right on her heels battling through leg pain to post a seventh-place showing with an 18:12 clocking.

CASCADE — He saw flashes of it against Monticello during the first week of the season and he saw even more of it Friday, September 7, as his Anamosa football team traveled to Cascade for one final non-district tune-up before the class 3A Raider slate begins in earnest this week against Central DeWitt.

“What I saw was our offense starting to click,” said Anamosa football coach Matt Malausky after his team was handed a rough 41-7 defeat at the hands of an up-start Cougar team. “Right now, we’re not looking just at the final score. Sure we wanted to be more competitive than this against Cascade, but I was happy with the way the offense was able to move the football, especially in the first half.

We had good rhythm and our receivers ran good routes and our quarterback made good decisions. Now what we need out of everyone is to put it all together for four full quarters. We’ve shown we can do it in spurts, now what I want is to show some consistency.”

Anamosa (0-2) fumbled the opening kick-off setting the Cougars up deep in Raider territory, but the opportunistic Anamosa defense was up to the challenge.

“That play was a thing of beauty,” said Malausky. “Nathan’s throw was right on target and caught Colten in perfect stride down the sideline and he was gone once he grabbed it. That got our sideline and team so pumped up, it was just great to be around that kind of energy. This team wants to win so much and they are working very hard at trying to accomplish that goal.”

Cascade answered quickly themselves as Melloy scored yet again, this touchdown coming off a six-yard scamper and after a successful two-point conversion, the hosts held a 14-7 lead.
“While we didn’t put the football in the end zone again the rest of the game, I was happy with the way we were able to move the football with our passing game there in the first half,” said Malausky. “It wasn’t until late in the second quarter did we start to have some trouble again with some quick 3-and-outs and that played right into Cascade’s hands.”

Melloy scored his third touchdown of the first half blasting into the end zone after an 11-yard run in the second quarter and added yet another after a six-yard scamper that handed the hosts a commanding 28-7 halftime advantage.

“We weren’t doing our defense any favors going 3-and-out so quickly,” said Malausky. “They were on the field a lot and Cascade was starting to wear us down with their running game.”
The Cougars continued to pound away with their powerful running game in the third quarter and added two more touchdowns, taking a 41-7 lead into the final frame.

“While Cascade did make some big plays against our defense, was happy with how aggressive we were and forcing the Cougars into making turnovers,” said Malausky as his team forced the hosts into four turnovers. “We had two interceptions and two fumble recoveries. A plus-3 turnover ratio is always a good thing.”

Kaufman tallied 225 yards competing 15-of-40 passes hooking up with Kelly four times for 120 yards while Skyler Miell also came through with four catches totaling 50 yards. Brady Vaughn reeled in three Kaufman passes for 38 yards while Tony Lueken added two more for 17 yards.

“Nathan spread the football around well,” said Malausky. “We’re just looking for that consistency now. When we lost our rhythm there in the second half, we were forced to run the football a little more than we’d like, just to try and help our defense rest a little and it worked too.”

Tucker Vondracek rushed six times for 33 yards while Travis Keltner also received a pair of carries in the backfield.

Taylor Coons led the Anamosa defense with 17 tackles while Josh English, Nile Price and Vaughn added 12 more each.

“I was also impressed with the way our fans travel,” said Malausky. “We had more people in the stands than Cascade did. The energy provided by our crowd really keeps us pumped up”“

“I really did think we played a pretty good football game,” said Cummings. “We were forced to make some adjustments to our offense with Midland’s ability to slow our running game, so we put the ball in the air a bit more than we did the week before and we had some success.”

Both defenses shared the spotlight through much of the contest however, as offense was hard to come by with the Lions tallying just 205 yards and Midland 177 yards of total offense.

“We had some chances to score that we missed out on and in close games, that comes back to haunt,” said Cummings. “Our defense played very well, but when Midland went to the spread offense, we struggled and that’s where they took advantage.”

The scoring started late in the second quarter as Midland was inside the Lion five-yard line and with the clock quickly ticking away on the half, Jed Holland crossed the goal line on a fourth-down call as time expired.

“We had played so well to that point and had fought so hard, it was tough, them scoring like that right at the end of the half,” said Cummings. “But we stayed focused and came back out and did what we needed to do to get back into the game and get on the scoreboard.