It turns out blond was more fun for Bulldogs

Notre Dame's colors may be blue and white, but Cape Girardeau Mayor Jay Knudtson was sporting Bulldog blond on Tuesday.

Knudtson pulled out a blond wig after he presented Notre Dame's Class 2 state champion boys soccer team a proclamation honoring their feat.

The mayor made his presentation at a morning assembly for a prayer service.

"He gave us a nice little proclamation we can put in a frame and keep," Notre Dame soccer coach Brad Wittenborn said.

At the end of his talk, Knudtson pulled out the wig, hidden in his jacket, and plopped it on his head.

Knudtson's hair style was not a fashion faux pas in Bulldog Country. Notre Dame players bleached their hair for the entire season, which, as it turned out, was not so dumb.

The blond hair picked up momentum in the playoffs when Brother David Migliorino, the school's principal, donned a blond wig.

Even Wittenborn adopted the style before the Bulldogs' four-overtime 1-0 victory over St. Francis Borgia in the championship game.

"They gave me some hair dye," Wittenborn said of his players.

And?

"It didn't work too good on gray," he said.

Urhahn update

Notre Dame forward Blake Urhahn remained out of school this week after he was released from the hospital last Friday after being injured on the game-winning play of the championship game six days earlier.

Urhahn suffered a fractured kidney in a collision with the Borgia goalie as he headed the ball to Jeff Brosey for the game-ending goal.

Doctors discussed removing Urhahn's kidney the night of the accident but relented.

"He probably will come back to school Monday if things keep going well," Wittenborn said.

Wittenborn gets award

Wittenborn was voted Missouri's small-school coach of the year by the Missouri State High School Soccer Coaches Association.

"Obviously when you have great players you have a better opportunity to get recognition like this," Wittenborn said. "It's really a player award."

The award also carries an automatic nomination for national coach of the year.

Perfectly situated

Rockhurst (13-0) climbed to No. 8 in the latest Student Sports National Fab 50 rankings.

The Hawks walloped Lindbergh for the Class 6 state championship Friday and prepared for their state run against a tough schedule while picking up a geography lesson in the process. The team traveled to Edina, Minn., hosted two teams from Texas (Golf Shores, Houston; Jesuit College Prep, Dallas) and visited Joliet Catholic in Illinois.

Rockhurst is in elite company but has a short resume compared to others. Topping the national poll is De La Salle of Concorde, Calif. The Spartans have a 136-game winning streak and have not lost a regular-season game in 13 seasons.

Scoring big points

Perryville's April Lorenz must have stored up points in the offseason. Lorenz christened her junior season by bursting for 45 of her team's 76 points in Monday's opening win over Chester, Ill., in its own round-robin tournament.

Maybe Lorenz was just trying to prove she was healthy. After all, she had surgery on a torn ACL in the summer.