The girls have the court alone for now

Girls are on the basketball court this week with the 2018-19 season officially opening. For area high school teams, games begin Friday.

Baxter and Lynnville-Sully tip off the season first with games Friday. Newton and Prairie City-Monroe open their seasons Saturday at the Newton Holiday Tournament.

Colfax-Mingo joins the group with a home game on Tuesday. All five Jasper County girls’ high school teams are in action on Tuesday highlighted by Lynnville-Sully hosting Baxter.

College basketball is underway also for both women and men. I’d have to say this was a pretty good week for women’s basketball in Iowa. The four NCAA Division I programs in Iowa are a combined 9-1. Drake took a 2-0 mark into its home opener on Thursday.

I’ll come back to the Iowa squads in a minute. A milestone was reached this week in NCAA women’s basketball by a coach with ties to the University of Iowa.

Rutgers’ head coach C. Vivian Stringer recorded her 1,000th career victory Tuesday. Rutgers beat Central Connecticut State 73-44.

Stringer had 269 of those victories as head coach of the Iowa Hawkeye women’s basketball team. She was coached the Hawkeyes from 1982-1995.

During that span, Stringer’s teams had six Big Ten championships — two were solo titles in 1987-88 and 1991-92. Iowa had two NCAA tournament Elite Eight appearances, reached the Sweet 16 and was in the Final Four in 1992-93, losing to Ohio State, 73-72, in overtime in a tournament semifinal.

Stringer began her coaching career at Cheyney State in her home state of Pennsylvania in 1971. She left Iowa for Rutgers, which was in the Big East Conference at the time and now is member of the Big Ten.

The Hall of Fame coach joined Pat Summitt, Geno Auriemma, Tara VanDerveer and Sylvia Hatchell in the 1,000-victory club. Division II coach Barbara Stevens also has won more than 1,000 games. The 70-year-old Stringer is the first African-American coach to reach the milestone.

In the story on the game, there was an interesting tidbit about Rutger’s opponent in the final paragraph. Kiana Patterson led Central Connecticut State with 25 points, including the 1,000th of her career.

That’s kind of cool — 1,000th victory for Stringer and 1,000th career point for CCS’s Patterson on the same night.

There was another 1,000th career milestone on Tuesday night. It belongs to a current Iowa Hawkeye women’s player.

First off, Iowa senior Megan Gustafson was perfect — 13-of-13 — from the field shooting. She led the 13th-ranked Hawkeyes to a 104-67 road win at Western Kentucky.

Gustafson became the second player in program history to surpass 1,000 career rebounds with six boards in the first half. She scored 12 straight Iowa points spanning the third-quarter break, ending up with 29 points.

Iowa is 3-0. The Hawkeyes have their home opener on Saturday.

Iowa State’s Cyclones are 3-0 and will be playing for the Preseason WNIT championship on Saturday at Hilton Coliseum. They play the winner of Thursday’s Marquette vs. Miami contest.

The Cyclones rallied from a 15-point deficit to beat Auburn, 67-64, on Tuesday. Freshman Ashley Joens put up a team-high 18 points, while senior Bridget Carleton scored the game-winning basket with nine seconds remaining to lift the Cyclones to victory.

Carleton stuffed the stat sheet in Tuesday’s win, putting up 15 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists. She also swatted Auburn’s Janiah McKay’s final shot attempt out of bounds in the closing moments to secure the win.

Iowa hosts Iowa State in Iowa City on Dec. 5 in the Cy-Hawk Series.

Drake’s women are looking to three-peat as the Missouri Valley Conference champions. The Bulldogs have a good start.

While Drake was the preseason favorite to repeat atop the MVC, UNI’s Panthers were voted No. 2. The Panthers are 1-1 on the season.

I know the college basketball season is underway for the men’s teams also.

An update on the two former Newton High players — Connor Gholson and Garrett Sturtz on the Drake team. Gholson suffered a leg injury requiring surgery in last week’s season opener and Sturtz hasn’t played yet. There is a possibility Sturtz will redshirt this season depending on the eligibility of a sophomore player.

Everything on the winter sports season gets moving after Thanksgiving. The Newton Daily News Jasper County Winter Sports Preview Section comes out Wednesday.

But the ladies have it for now.

Contact Jocelyn Sheets
at jsheets@newtondailynews.com