Only the finish line was biggest obstacle keeping Riley Bauer from a state title.  The North Union junior captured the Class 1A state title by cruising to the win with a time of 16:09.7, 23 seconds ahead of runner-up Shane Breheny of Treynor in the meet held in Fort Dodge on Saturday, Oct. 29.

It was an instant classic. Algona came in with a 21-18 overall match record with a youthful squad that had gotten enormous contributions from four freshmen throughout the 2016 season.
Humboldt was ranked eighth in the final Class 3A rankings with a sparkling 31-1 record and was led by six experienced seniors and a pair of juniors.

Bishop Garrigan moved onto the Class 1A regional semi-finals with a four-set victory over the West Bend-Mallard Wolverines in a match played at West Bend on Monday, Oct. 24.
West Bend-Mallard grabbed an early 5-2 advantage in game number one before the black-and-gold fought its way back to tie the contest at 12-12. The visitors took the lead up to 17-13, broke it out to 23-16 before taking the first set by the score of 25-17.

Bishop Garrigan wrapped up a perfect regular season for the second straight year with a 40-6 victory over the St. Edmond Gaels in a game played at Dodger Stadium in Fort Dodge on Friday, Oct. 21.
The Golden Bears (9-0, 7-0) will entertain Earlham (6-3) in the first round of the Class A playoffs at Conway Field on Friday, Oct. 28, as the Gaels finished a tough year at 2-7 and went 1-6 in district play.

North Union was on the road at Emmetsburg to finish the regular season as the green-black-and-silver overcame a little adversity after leading hitter Olivia Marlow went down with an injury during warm-ups to defeat the E-Hawks in three straight sets.
“I was very proud of how the girls adjust without any preparation,” said Warrior Head Coach Ashley Scheevel. “I was not sure how they would adjust when Olivia went down as she is our big hitter and has been playing really well.

Algona closed out its 2016 volleyball regular season by going 4-2 and placing third at the Algona Invitational held at Algona High School on Saturday, Oct. 15.
Lake Mills was the tourney champions as they went 6-0 to complete a perfect 39-0 regular season with Forest City the runner-up at 5-1. Sheldon went 3-3 as Carroll was 2-4, Clear Lake went 1-5 and Spencer was winless in all six of its matches.

Bishop Garrigan finished as the runners-up in the Western Division of the Top of Iowa Conference meet held at Mason City on Thursday, Oct. 13.
The meet saw the entire group of league teams compete in an overall race and then after the race was over, the meet was also rescored and broke into the Western and Eastern Divisions.

Bishop Garrigan wrapped up a Class A district playoff berth with a hard-fought 32-6 victory over the Ridge View Raptors in a contest played on Friday, Oct. 7 at Holstein.
The black-and-gold received the opening kickoff and marched 52 yards in 14 plays as Gibson Behr ran the final yard for the score. Brad Capesius ran in the conversion try as the visitors led 8-0 with 4:53 remaining in the first period.

Algona sophomore Trey Engen earned all-conference honors by being one of the top eight runners at the North Central Conference boys’ cross-country meet held at Hampton on Tuesday, Oct. 11.
Engen was clocked in 17:51.12 to earn his medal and all-conference status in the meet.  Teammate Conner Yi finished in 17th place for the red-and-black in 18:35.53 as Zach Ortloff took 23rd with his time of 18:58.99 and Cameron Petersen ended up in 27th place in 19:02.46.

The Algona Bulldog girls’ cross-country squad finished in fifth place with 97 points in the annual North Central Conference meet ran on Tuesday, Oct. 11 at Hampton.
Humboldt won the conference title with a team score of 33 followed by Clear Lake with 69 as St. Edmond was third with 75 and Iowa Falls-Alden took fourth place with 86 points.

North Union’s Riley Bauer was the runner-up at the Hampton-Dumont cross-country meet ran at Maynes Grove I Hampton on Thursday, Sept. 29.
Bauer finished second in 16:34.33 behind Reece Smith of Garner-Hayfield/Ventura’s 16:25.26 clocking as Smith is the top-ranked runner in Class 2A.
Teammate Skyler Morphew came across the finish line in 42nd place for the green-black-and-silver in 20:04.40 and Braden Pierce placed 53rd with his time of 20:31.83.

A young, improving North Union Warrior football squad won its second victory of the season with a 26-14 triumph over the Marcus-Meriden-Cleghorn/Remsen Union Royals in a contest played at Armstrong on Friday, Sept. 30.
The visitors scored on their opening possession as they hit the green-black-and-silver with a 65-yard pass play.  The conversion was good and the Royals led 7-0 with 8:32 still remaining in the opening stanza of action.

Post-season volleyball parings for the four area volleyball squads were released on Friday afternoon and now the teams know what opponents stand in their way of a possible state tournament berth.
Class 1A teams begin play on Tuesday, Oct. 18 ,and both Bishop Garrigan and West Bend-Mallard will be in action that evening.  The Golden Bears (13-14) will play at North Iowa (7-7) while the Wolverines (8-17) will entertain West Hancock (2-14) that night.

Bishop Garrigan remained undefeated on the year and still unscored on in district play with a 40-0 shutout victory over the South O’Brien Wolverines in a game played at Conway Field on Friday, Sept. 30.
The black-and-gold scored in every quarter in the win while the Golden Bears limited the black-and-white to total offense on the evening of 89 yards in the contest.

pirit Lake out-scored Algona 27-0 in the fourth quarter to break open a 28-14 contest and went onto a 55-14 win over the red-and-black.  The Indians used big plays in the victory to spoil the Bulldogs’ homecoming as the visitors had seven plays of 36 yards or more in the game.