Riley Bauer placed fourth in the 800-meter run on Friday, April 27 at the Drake Relays in Des Moines. The Warrior senior was clocked in 1:58.47 as the race was won by Tyler Olson of Muscatine with a time of 1:56.55 as he qualified for the event with the fastest going in.
For more on this story, please see the May 3rd issue of the Kossuth County Advance

Despite some horrible weather conditions to get meets in this spring, the Algona area will still be well represented at the annual running of the Drake Relays with 11 area athletes competing in six different events during the three days of competition.
The Algona boys’ track squad leads the way by qualifying in four different events and is closely followed by the North Union boys in three races.

Algona won three relays and finished as the runner-up in the annual Wildcat Relays ran at Humboldt on Monday, April 23. The red-and-black totaled 132 points, 15 less than champion Humboldt accumulated during the evening.

Two track meets, two new school records. The 2018 track season is off to a great start for Algona’s Dominick Etherington as the senior shot putter rewrote the school record book for the second straight meet.

Bishop Garrigan won four events in their season opener for the girls’ track year at a meet ran at Garner on Thursday, April 12 as North Union also competed at the meet which no team scores were kept.
Other squads there included Garner-Hayfield/Ventura, North Iowa, Graettinger-Terril/Ruthven-Ayrshire, West Fork, Clarion-Goldfield and Clear Lake.
For more on this story, see the April 19th issue of the Kossuth County Advance.

Bishop Garrigan's Jenna Boelter (first row far right) played in an all-star game at Dallas Center-Grimes on March 24 and also played in one on April 7 at Kirkwood College in Cedar Rapids.

A pair of local officials were inducted into the Iowa Girls' Coaches Association Hall of Fame on Saturday, April 7 at Cedar Rapids.  Pictured are Randy Tjaden of Titonka and Brian Hobbs of Buffalo Center.

Dirt track racing at the Kossuth County Speedway is right around the corner as the 2018 season at the oval will begin on Thursday, April 19 as there will be a test and tune night at the track with a rain date of April 22.
“We have a well-round schedule for the 2018 season,” said track manager Ron Reefer. “Just like last year, we tried to make each class have a big money special and focus on that class of cars that evening.

The 2018 football schedules for the four area football teams were released last week by the Iowa High School Athletic Association. The schools knew who their district opponents were, but did not know until Wednesday who they would play in its non-district contests.
Algona moved down to Class 2A for the next two seasons of football and will have four home games and hit the road five times during the fall of 2018.

Cole Banwart, a 2016 graduate of Algona High School, is listed as the backup center for the Iowa Hawkeyes as the squad is in the middle of its slate of spring practices.
The three-time all-stater for the Bulldogs from Ottosen is listed at 6’ 4”, 294 pounds and wears jersey No. 61 coming into the spring. He earned a letter last year as a redshirt freshman by appearing in three games for the Hawkeyes.

A trio of returnees are back to highlight the 21st edition of the Kossuth County Advance Girls’ All-Area Basketball Team this year. Jenna Boelter of Bishop Garrigan makes the team for the fourth time in her career while North Union’s Samantha Hagedorn returns for the third straight season and Aliyah Buscher of Algona is a member of the squad for the second time.

Bishop Garrigan junior T.J. Schnurr was named to the Class 1A second-team all-state squad by a vote of the Iowa Print Sports Writers Association over the weekend in Des Moines.
Schnurr led the 19-5 Golden Bears in scoring with 454 points scored in the 24 games he played in for a scoring average of 18.91 points per outing.
 
​For more on this story, please see the March 15 issue of the Kossuth County Advance
 

A pair of returnees headline the 21st annual edition of the All-Area Boys’ Basketball Team as T.J. Schnurr and Cade Winkel of Bishop Garrigan are back along with newcomers Riley Bauer of North Union, Wyatt Wegener and Trevor Bormann of Algona and Angelo Winkel of Bishop Garrigan.

It was an instant classic. The longest and perhaps the most exciting game of the 2018 state tournament saw No. 6 Cascade outlast No. 10 North Union 62-53 in triple overtime.
The Class 2A semifinal contest took place at the Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines on Friday, March 2. The game saw six lead changes and was dead-locked on six different occasions.

Springville has made an appearance in the Class 1A girls’ basketball title game the past three years and on Wednesday, Feb. 28, it showed the Bishop Garrigan Golden Bears and the rest of the field it intended to make it four in a 54-36 victory over the black-and-gold.
The opening round of the state tournament was played at the Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines. The Golden Bears had tough first half shooting the basketball, making just 4-of-28 shots from the field.