Sports
Southeast Polk football, Dike-New Hartford volleyball, named Teams of the Year
The Southeast Polk football team and the Dike-New Hartford volleyball team were named the Boys and Girls Teams of the Year Monday night at the Iowa High School Sports Awards, presented by SCHEELS.
The event was held at Hoyt-Sherman place in Des Moines and honored more than 250 Iowa student-athletes.
The Boys and Girls Teams of the Year were presented by Cookies Food Products.
The finalists for Boys Team of the Year were Ames baseball and Des Moines Hoover soccer.
The Girls Team of the Year finalists were Johnston basketball and North Scott volleyball.
Three titles in three years. That’s the current dynasty Southeast Polk is putting together.
The legacy continued this past season when the Rams beat Ankeny in the Class 5A state championship for it’s third title in a row.
During that three-year span, Southeast Polk has only lost two games. This season, the Rams went 14-0 and made a case as possibly one of the best ever to play in the large classification in Iowa. With the third title, Southeast Polk became the 33rd school in state history to win three or more state titles and the eighth to do it three times in a row.
A 50-0 record. It almost doesn’t sound real.
But that’s exactly what Dike-New Hartford volleyball did this past year.
Even more impressive was that they only dropped one set in those 50 wins, and that was against 5A state finalist Dowling Catholic. The Wolverines won by an average of more than 11 points per set over the course of the season.
Led by the Petersen twins of Payton and Jadyn, Dike-New Hartford beat Hinton in the state final, won the program’s first state championship since 2021 and cemented itself as one of the best teams to ever assemble in Iowa state history.