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Paralympic gold medalist Josh Turek launches run against US Sen. Joni Ernst

Published

4 months ago

August 12, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Paralympic gold medalist Josh Turek launches run against US Sen. Joni Ernst

The Iowa state representative, who won twice in Trump territory, is betting his story of overcoming adversity will resonate statewide.

Josh Turek has never been afraid of long odds.

Born with spina bifida after his father’s exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam, Turek endured 21 surgeries by age 12. He then went on to win two Paralympic gold medals for Team USA in wheelchair basketball.

“ I’m someone that has overcome an enormous amount of economic adversity in my life, and certainly healthcare challenges. With all that I’ve been able to go through, I can speak to all these Iowans that are suffering and struggling,” Turek said.

United States players celebrate winning the men’s group B preliminary wheelchair basketball game against Brazil during the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. Front, from left are John Gilbert, Joshua Turek and Jake Williams. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

This was the story he drug upstairs—in addition to his chair—as a candidate for an Iowa House seat in Council Bluffs.

“ I learned the importance of hard work and grit and determination,” Turek said. “But it also taught me that at our core, we’re ultimately not that much different, that a lot of people out there, we’re all struggling with some of the same issues.”

In his successful 2022 run for the state House, he won his seat by just six votes. Two years later, Turek overperformed Democrats in seats across the state, outperforming former Vice President Kamala Harris by more than 13 points in his district.

Now Turek is taking on a big, new challenge. On Tuesday morning, he entered the Democratic primary to unseat US Sen. Joni Ernst, a Republican.

“Iowans deserve a senator who works for them again,” Turek said in his campaign announcement Tuesday.

But winning statewide in Iowa presents a different challenge entirely. Republicans control nearly every major statewide office, and Trump carried the state by Iowa by eight points in 2020 and 13 points in 2024. Democrats haven’t won a US Senate race in Iowa since Tom Harkin’s reelection in 2008.

Turek’s campaign strategy appears to center on his personal story and his focus on healthcare issues. As someone who has navigated the healthcare system his entire life while managing his disability, he speaks about medical costs and access with authority.

“People would change jobs or change insurances and they could no longer afford their insulin,” Turek said, describing conversations from his door-to-door campaigning. “It’s fundamentally wrong to live in the richest country on earth and people are having to make that determination of, do I take my medicine? Do I take my pills? Or do I pay my bills?”

Turek’s legislative focus on disability issues stems from personal experience navigating healthcare bureaucracy. His signature “Work Without Worry” bill would eliminate what advocates call the “marriage penalty”—asset and income limits that can disqualify people with disabilities from Medicaid waivers when they get married or receive modest pay increases. The legislation would raise income limits for employed, disabled Iowans from 250% to 450% of the federal poverty level and remove most asset restrictions.

“He understands the barriers,” said Ben Grauer, a disability policy advocate in Iowa City who has worked with Turek. “He speaks to these issues and he does it in a way that’s not been co-opted by the generic Democrat talking points.”

Turek faces a crowded Democratic primary field in his bid to challenge Ernst, joining Mformer Marine Nathan Sage, State Rep. JD Scholten and State Sen. Zach Wahls.

The key question is whether Turek’s formula for success in his House district can scale statewide. His approach has leaned on the personal. He says he knocked 14,000 doors in his district in 2022. That kind of retail politics worked in a single district, but reaching Iowa’s 3.2 million residents requires a different kind of campaign.

But Turek said he’s optimistic about Democratic chances in 2026, pointing to energy he’s seeing at campaign events across the state. He was at a recent event in Harlan, where he says there’s a change happening in Trump country.

“They said, ‘I voted for Trump, but this is not what I stand for. This is not what I voted for. Not the naked corruption. Not the cuts to food assistance and healthcare just to benefit billionaires.”

“Iowa, we have presented as far more red than what we are at our essence,” he said. “We are a common sense state, and I am a common sense prairie populist. And I believe … we can do it. It just takes a lot of hard work.”

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Zachary Oren Smith

Zachary Oren Smith is your friendly neighborhood reporter. He leads Starting Line’s political coverage where he investigates corruption, housing affordability and the future of work. For nearly a decade, he’s written award-winning stories for Iowa Public Radio, The Des Moines Register and Iowa City Press-Citizen. Send your tips on hard news and good food to [email protected].

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Titans Are Champions: Women’s Volleyball Completes First Flawless NCAA Championship Run Since 2004

Published

7 minutes ago

December 8, 2025

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Oshkosh did not drop a set across their six matches in the national tournament on its way to the first national title in program history.

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.- UW-Oshkosh women’s volleyball is the 2025 NCAA Division III national champion!

The Titans (34-3) completed their perfect national tournament with a 3-0 win over the University of La Verne (Calif.) at the Shirk Center on the campus of Illinois Wesleyan University on Saturday (Dec. 6). They won by set scores of 25-17, 25-22, 25-21. The neutral site match had a home court feeling as friends, family, fellow student-athletes, and coaches packed the arena and cheered on the Titans all through the historic match.

While being the first national championship in program history, it is also the 51st in UW-Oshkosh history, the first Division III title since men’s basketball won the 2019 championship and the first women’s Division III title since women’s track & field won the 2014 indoor championship. Since 2020, UW-Oshkosh has claimed four national championships; the remaining three were won by women’s gymnastics at the National Collegiate Gymnastics Association Championship.

The championship match appearance was Oshkosh’s second in program history and the first since falling to Washington University in St. Louis (Mo.) in the 1994 title match.

Exceptional

The Titans entered Saturday on an 18-set winning streak dating back to the WIAC Tournament championship match against UW-Eau Claire at Kolf Sport Center on Nov. 15 and a 37-22 all-time record in the national championship. After the win in Saturday’s championship match, they became the first program since 2004 to not drop a set in the national tournament.

Oshkosh hit .195 in the three-set match and held the Leopards (30-3) to a .140 attack percentage. While La Verne led 9-7 in team blocks and 62-57 in digs, the Titans held advantages of 54-44 in points, 43-33 in kills, 4-2 in service aces, and 37-32 in assists.

Riley Borrowman (Oswego, Ill./Oswego) got the first set going with a light tap over the net and into a large gap between defenders. The Titans then used a pair of three-point runs to create an early 9-3 lead and force a La Verne timeout. They recorded two more points out of the timeout before La Verne went on a 4-0 run to make the score 11-7. The Leopards got within three points; however, Oshkosh responded with a 5-1 run that included three kills by Samantha Perlberg (Chippewa Falls/Chippewa Falls). The deficit hovered around six points until a service error by the Leopards gave Oshkosh the serve and Borrowman bookended the set with her third kill.

La Verne scored on the first two serves of the second set and retained the lead, fighting off 4-4, 9-9 and 10-10 ties before reclaiming the edge following a Perlberg and Lauren Grier (Fond du Lac/Fond du Lac) combination block to make the score 11-10. Continuing the back-and-fourth set, Oshkosh and La Verne got knotted up 10 more times at each point as neither team could score more than twice in a row. Perlberg broke the streak of ties with an ace and after La Verne called its first timeout, Grace Juergens (Lockport, Ill./Lockport Community) and Grier tallied kills of their own to make the score 23-20. Grier and Juergens each followed a Leopard point with the 24th and 25th points of the match. Both were kills.

Oshkosh and La Verne traded service errors to begin the third set before the trended of tied scores continued five more times until the Leopards put together a three-point spurt to make the score 11-8. They led by 15-11 headed into the timeout, however the Titans flipped a switch out of the break and went 7-1 to lead 18-16. Maren Motz (Hartland/Arrowhead Union) and Perlberg added two kills in a 3-0 spurt that brought the Titans past the 20-point mark of the set.

By the numbers

Perlberg registered her 22nd double-double in 36 matches, notching 16 kills on 41 attacks with seven errors and dug 13 attacks while adding a service ace and four blocks. Perlberg, who had reset the Oshkosh single-season total attacks record in the semifinal, extended her record past Jean Harmsen’s 1997 mark of 1,429 with 41 in the championship match for a total of 1,472 on the season.

Juergens also reached double-digit kills for the 19th time with 10. She scored twice from the service line, had four digs, and blocked a shot.

In their final match in yellow and gold, Izzy Coon (Fond du Lac/St. Mary’s Springs Academy) and Jaclyn Dutkiewicz (Franklin/Franklin) registered 17 and 13 assists, respectively. Dutkiewicz added 13 digs and Coon had eight.

Lauren Grier (Fond du Lac/Fond du Lac) joined Perlberg with four block assists and Borrowman tallied three total (one solo).

Callie Panasuk (Oak Creek/Oak Creek) was the third Titan with double-digit digs with 10 to cap off her fantastic freshman campaign.

After the championship concluded, Coon, Grier, Panasuk, and Perlberg were all named to the all-tournament team Perlberg was selected as the championship’s most outstanding player.

UW-Oshkosh athletics

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Miami volleyball season ends, falling to Kansas in the second round 3-1

Published

24 minutes ago

December 8, 2025

Your Sports Nation

VBvsFSU1 — The University of Miami volleyball team gears up for the rivalry match against Florida State University on Nov. 5, 2025 at Knight Sports Complex

The No. 5 seed Miami Hurricanes had their record season come to an end on Friday night, falling to the No. 4 seeded Kansas Jayhawks, 3-1, in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Even in defeat, UM’s star was in top-form. Senior Flormarie Heredia Colon notched 14 digs and 27 kills, ending her college career with 1,896 kills, more than any other Hurricane in program history. Senior Naylani Feliciano also surpassed 1,000 career digs with 14.

The first set started off neck-and neck with Heredia Colon notching a kill to tie the set at five apiece.

But right after, Kansas pulled away by going on a 5-0 run to make the score 10-5. During the run, Kansas senior Rhian Swanson had back-to-back kills.

The ’Canes never closed the gap for the remainder of the set as the closest they would come after would be when senior Dalia Wilson tallied a kill to bring the Kansas lead down to 16-13. The Jayhawks went on to win the set 25-17, closing with a kill by freshman Selena Leban, taking a 1-0 match lead.

Like set one, the second set started out with a battle with an ace by Wilson giving Miami a slight edge for a 9-8 lead. However, the Jayhawks, trying to replicate the first set, once again went on a 5-0 run, this time to bring their lead to 13-9.

Unlike the first set however, the Hurricanes responded to the run well. Their response was simple: they went on a run of their own. The ’Canes went on a 4-0 run, finishing off with a Heredia Colon kill to tie the match at 13-all. The remainder of the set was a back-and-forth battle with the score being tied late at 21 apiece.

Photo Credit: @Canesvb via X // Miami’s Women’s Volleyball team celebrates its third set win over Tulsa on Dec. 4 2025.

Unfortunately for the Hurricanes, it would be the Jayhawks who would make the finishing blow as they won four out of the final five points. Kansas would win the set, 25-22, bringing them one set from the round of 16, leading 2-0.

Miami started the third set off well, leading 3-2 after a kill by Heredia Colon. In need of a set victory to keep the match and its season alive, Miami controlled the rest of the set, winning three of the last four points, two coming off kills by junior Ava Carney and one by way of an ace from Feliciano. UM would win the set, 25-22, cutting the match score to 2-1.

The fourth and final set began in Miami’s favor with two kills by Heredia Colon and an ace by Wilson gave them an early 4-1 lead. The lead would not last long as a Leban kill tied it up at 5-5.

A 7-1 Kansas run gave them a 14-9 lead, but the ’Canes battled back for the rest of the set with UM even coming within a point of tying the match when they led the set 24-23. However, a kill by Kansas freshman Jovana Zelenovic tied the match and the Jayhawks then won three of the next four points to win the set 27-25 as well as the match, 3-1, sending themselves to the round of 16.

After the loss, Miami’s season comes to a close. They finished with a 27-6 (16-4 ACC) record, tying the 2002 team’s record for wins in a season for the program. This would also be the last time starters Feliciano, Heredia Colon and Wilson as well as other players, Jazmin Vergara and Lilou Stegeman, will wear the Miami uniform as they all will be graduating.

Heredia Colon will continue her volleyball career in Major League Volleyball as she was selected in the second round, No. 10 overall, of the 2025 MLV draft to the Columbus Fury.

Miami will have big shoes to fill next season.

Senior Flormarie Heredia Colon celebrates with her team following Miami’s win over No.4 Pitt on Oct. 10, 2025. Photo Credit: Canes Volleyball on X

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Texas vs Indiana in Sweet 16

Published

40 minutes ago

December 8, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Looking back, things couldn’t have gone any better for Texas volleyball during the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament.

The top-seeded Longhorns (24-3) flash a poised and precise offense befitting one of the top attacks in the country: They hit better than .400 in both matches while sweeping unseeded Florida A&M and No. 8 Penn State in the first- and second-round matches, respectively. They also flashed a relentless defense with an imposing block and impenetrable back row: On Friday, Florida A&M had more hitting errors than kills, and defending champion Penn State hit just .124 Saturday against Texas.

And in order to reach their ultimate goal of an NCAA championship, said All-American candidate Torrey Stafford, the Longhorns need to maintain that kind of balance entering the round of 16 this weekend at Gregory Gymnasium.

“I feel like it’s easy to put a big emphasis on either offense or defense, but we try to do both,” Stafford said after Saturday’s 25-16, 25-9, 25-19 sweep over Penn State. “And in order to be a great offensive team, we need to be great defensive team, too.”

Stafford and her teammates certainly looked great against the Nittany Lions while reaching the Sweet 16 for a 20th consecutive season. Stafford fired 21 kills with just one hitting error while fellow attackers Cari Spears and Abby Vander Wal combined for 19 more kills with just three hitting errors.

“I just felt like everyone was on the same page tonight,” said setter Ella Swindle, who dished out 21 assists. “I think we just had a really clear picture of what we were trying to do, and I think all of our hitters did a really good job of just being ready in any situation and also just going after the shots that they wanted.”

Now, Texas will take the best shot from surprising Indiana (25-7), which reached the round of 16 for just the second time in program history by sweeping Colorado. The Hoosiers boast a balanced squad steeled by playing in arguably the country’s deepest conference, the Big Ten. They ranked fifth in the Big Ten this season with a .283 hitting percentage, and they boast a veteran attacker in Candela Alonso-Corcelles, a 6-foot-2 senior from Spain who averages 3.54 kills a set.

But the key to the Hoosiers could be setter Teodora Kričković, said UT coach Jerritt Elliott. The 6-foot-2 freshman from Serbia emerged as one of the top young setters in the nation this season while averaging 10.67 assists per set. Her size also gives Indiana a presence at the net, much like Texas has with the 6-2 Swindle; Kričković has 52 kills as well as 50 blocks.

Elliott said he caught “about 15 minutes” of Indiana on TV earlier this season, but is looking forward to diving into the film study.

“I think they’re a fast team, I think they’ve got good setting, (and) I think they’re pretty efficient,” he said. “They’ll be a good challenge.”

Texas will face No. 4 Indiana Friday at noon at Gregory Gymnasium. With a win, the Longhorns will play a final home game this season Sunday against either No. 2 Stanford or No. 3 Wisconsin. The winner of that match qualifies for the Final Four Dec. 18-21 in Kansas City, Mo.

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#11 Creighton Volleyball to Meet #8 Arizona State in Sweet 16 in Lexington

Published

56 minutes ago

December 8, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Courtesy of Rob Anderson, Creighton Athletics

OMAHA, Neb. — The NCAA has announced that the No. 11 Creighton Volleyball team will meet No. 8 Arizona State on Thursday, Dec., 11 in Lexington, Ky. The teams will square off at 12 p.m. Central inside Memorial Coliseum.

Winners of 22 straight matches, Creighton is 27-5 this fall. The Bluejays are making their fifth Sweet 16 appearance, and third consecutive. Arizona State is 28-3 this fall and making their second Sweet 16 in the past three seasons. The only previous meeting between the programs came in 2002.

Thursday’s match will be broadcast on ESPN2.

Second-ranked Kentucky (27-2) will host Cal Poly (27-7) at 2:30 p.m. Central on Thursday.

The Regional Final featuring Thursday’s winners is scheduled for Saturday, with a time and broadcast plans to be announced following Thursday’s results.

For those fans interested in acquiring tickets to the NCAA Lexington Regional, all-session tickets will be on sale Monday at 9 a.m. Central with single-session tickets on sale Tuesday at 9 a.m. CT on UKathletics.com.

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Serve receive dooms Arizona Wildcats volleyball 2nd rd NCAA Tournament

Published

1 hour ago

December 8, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Arizona Wildcats volleyball players Haven Wray (8), Carlie Cisneros (12), and Brenna Ginder (3) smile during a Second Round NCAA Tournament match against Stanford on Dec. 6, 2025

Photo courtesy of Arizona Athletics

The Stanford Cardinal didn’t have their starting setter against Arizona on Saturday evening, but they did have a powerful serve. The Wildcats couldn’t handle or match it in a 3-1 (25-16, 25-27, 25-17, 25-20) loss in the second round of the 2025 NCAA Volleyball Tournament.

It wasn’t a disappointment for Arizona head coach Rita Stubbs, who was making her first appearance in the tournament as a head coach and leading the program to its first since 2018. The Wildcats won a match, giving them their first win in the tourney since 2016. They just couldn’t make it to the Sweet 16 for the first time since the same year.

“We took each day and the challenge that was before us, and we just gave it everything we had, which is exactly what you want,” Stubbs said. “You know, you want to battle and compete the entire time. And I like to think we exposed some issues that Stanford has, so that’s exciting.”

But that serve and pass game wasn’t one of them. Stanford had eight aces against nine service errors. The Wildcats committed 10 errors without serving a single ace.

“Before I went in, I was like, it’s all about the serve and pass,” Stubbs said. “And we were missing too many balls to the libero when we did serve it in, and then the serves just weren’t tough enough. And so I told them in the fourth set before we started, I was like, I don’t care if we miss a serve, we just got to be aggressive. And we missed the serve and wasn’t aggressive.”

The Wildcats still fought through it despite starting just one senior and one junior. The starting group of four sophomores and a freshman, along with the three seniors and one junior who subbed in, never let go of a set even when they looked to be buried by the Cardinal.

“It wasn’t for lack of effort,” Stubbs said. “It was just you got to be used to it,and then what I shared with them is that we have to go through things like this to get to our next. So much of this is still new for us with this group. The difference is your seniors are finished, and so now it’s about competing and doing better than we did this year next year to honor the seniors. That’s the direction we’re going.”

Stanford led wire-to-wire in the first set. The Cardinal never went on a big run. The biggest run was four points, but by that time they had put enough small runs together to build a nine-point lead at 22-13. It was the largest of the set and ended as the final margin.

Arizona didn’t fold despite Stanford running out to a 4-0 lead in the second set. The Wildcats used their own 4-1 run to tie the set at five points each. It stayed tight throughout, but Arizona got to set point at 24-23.

The Cardinal wiped away two set points, but they couldn’t string two points together to earn one of their own. The Wildcats put their third one away to even the match with a 27-25 second set.

Arizona never really bothered Stanford in the third. The Cardinal were able to put together larger runs and eventually led by 10 at 22-12. The Wildcats cut into the lead a bit, but they still dropped the set by eight and were one set from ending their season.

Things were tight early in the fourth set, but a critical call went against Arizona and seemed to turn the tide. At 7-5, Stanford’s Elia Rubin hit an attack that was called out. The television replay didn’t appear to show a touch by Arizona. It certainly didn’t appear to show anything definitive enough to overturn the call on the floor.

Stanford challenged and won the challenge. The call was overturned and the point went to the Cardinal. A one-point gap became three points. From there, they went on an 8-2 run to take a 16-7 lead.

The Wildcats knew it was their last chance. They continued to fight. The teams traded points for a while, then Arizona started to string a few together. A 5-1 run cut the lead to four points at 23-19.

The service errors raised their ugly head again. Giorgia Mandotti’s error gave Stanford several match points. Jordan Wilson’s final kill of her college career saved one, but that’s as far as it went. Jordyn Harvey put the next point away to win it for the home team.

Wilson finished her college career with a match-high 17 kills, seven digs, and two total blocks (one solo). That gave her 499 kills, 269 digs, 26 aces, 10 assists, and 44.0 total blocks in 108 sets this season. The outside hitter took over 9th place in total kills in a season, surpassing Kendra Dahlke’s 496 in 2016, the last year Arizona won an NCAA Tournament match. She also grabbed 10th in kills per set in a season with 4.62, knocking out Barb Bell’s 1994 season (4.51 k/s).

In her three years as a Wildcat, Wilson had 1,191 kills, 593 digs, 55 aces, 27 assists, and 127 total blocks in 310 sets over 86 matches. Her 3.84 kills per set (minimum of 200 sets played) over her Arizona career place her fifth in Wildcat history, surpassing the 3.82 of Tiffany Owens (2007-10).

Carlie Cisneros had 12 kills on .275 hitting, committing just one hitting error in four sets. Her nine digs kept her just shy of a double-double. It was the third straight match with 10 or more kills for Cisneros and the eighth in the last nine matches.

The development of Cisneros as a regular scoring threat was huge for the Wildcats in the tournament and down the stretch of the regular season. It also gives Stubbs hope for next season when Wilson is gone.

“That happened at Kansas, as well,” Stubbs said. “When Jordan struggled, she stepped up. It happened against Texas Tech when Jordan didn’t play. So, you know, she definitely wants to be the go-to player, and has shown that she’s capable of doing it.”

As has so often bee the case this season, it was a true team effort. Twelve members of Arizona’s 17-player roster made an appearance in the match, including all four seniors. Six players had at least two kills. Seven had at least one block. Eight had at least one dig.

“I was pleased with us and how we competed and how people that went in tried to make a difference and did a good job,” Stubbs said.

Journey Tucker once again showed that she can be a dominant force in the middle. The junior had four kills on .400 hitting and led the team with five total blocks.

Fellow junior MB Sydnie Vanek didn’t start, but she also made an impact when she came in. Vanek also had four kills. She tied for second on the team with three total blocks.

The match may have ended the season and the college careers of Wilson, Haven Wray, and Ana Heath; Mandotti still has a year of eligibility left either at Arizona or elsewhere. There were still a lot of positives to walk away with.

“I’m just grateful,” Stubbs said. “I’m grateful for the fact that Haven did it five times, and that Jordan transferred in, and that Ana stuck with it through the ups and downs of not having a position, per se. After her setting years, made the commitment to say, ‘Hey, I’m going to do this and commit to it.‘ It just says a lot about who they are as people, and you just always want the best for them, which is why I told them not to hang their heads. The best thing we can do to honor them is to be good from here on out, so that this was not for naught.”

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