An Algona High School graduate is slated to be the starting right guard for the Iowa Hawkeyes football team as the squad opens its 2019 campaign on Saturday, Aug. 31 at 6:30 p.m. at Kinnick Stadium against Miami (Ohio) University.
Cole Banwart, a 2016 graduate of Algona High School, returns for his second year as the team's starting left guard. the 6-foot-4, 296-pound Bulldog all-stater is listed as a redshirt junior and enters his fourth year in the Hawkeye program.

When the University of Northern Iowa Panthers football team heads to Ames on Saturday to open the 2019 season, 2016 Bishop Garrigan graduate Zac Kibby will handle the punting duties for the squad. He will also see action in other special teams and will be the number two strong safety or rover position.

An entertaining summer of dirt track racing concluded at the Kossuth County Speedway in Algona on Thursday, Aug. 22, with the season champions determined at the end of the evening.
A total of 67 cars signed into the pits for the final time in 2019. The hobby stock had the biggest car count with 16, followed by the sport mods with 14 and the stock cars with 13.
Get all the action in the Aug. 29 Kossuth County Advance.

Algona Bulldog Football: Making huge strides during the 2018 campaign, the 2019 Algona Bulldogs football team continues to move forward for more success on the field. A large group of 18 lettermen provide experience as 16 seniors will provide the squad with valuable leadership. The team numbers 67 strong, including 14 juniors, 16 sophomores and 21 freshmen.

Seven players return for the 14th annual Kossuth County Advance All-Area Baseball first team, led by West Bend-Mallard's Cole Hoskins and Bishop Garrigan's Luke Bormann, who are members of the unit for the third consecutive season.
The 16-member squad is made up of eight seniors, five juniors and a trio of talented sophomores this summer. The second team has two seniors, one junior and a freshman.
Read about the players in the Aug. 22 Kossuth County Advance.

For the last month, Garner's Jeremy Mills has been chasing his elusive 100th career victory. Thursday evening at the Kossuth County Speedway in Algona, the veteran driver finally achieved the milestone with his third feature win of the summer at the track.
Mills, who also captured modified feature wins in Algona on May 2 and June 13, came from the inside of row number four to top the 15-car field on Thursday.
Get all the action in the Aug. 22 Kossuth County Advance.

Ben Kern captured first place in the 26th annual Randy Buscher Memorial Algona Amateur golf tournament at the Algona Country Club over the past weekend.
Kern fired a three-under par 33 in the final nine holes to rally from a seven stroke deficit heading into the final round. Kern carded birdies on numbers 1, 7 and 9 in the final round, as the four-time champ was the only one of 20 players in the finals to go under par.
Get all the details in the Aug. 15 Advance.

In a school that has produced many great distance runners, recently graduated senior Trey Engen may have placed himself at the top of the podium after his performance at the Class 3A state track meet in Des Moines this spring.

Add another chapter to the long list of accomplishments achieved at the Bancroft Memorial baseball field.
The Bancroft Bandits used strong pitching from a trio of hurlers and a couple of breaks in the eighth inning to rally from deficits of 2-0 and 5-2 to defeat the Carroll Merchants 7-5 in the championship game of the Pioneer Collegiate Baseball League.
Get all the action in the Aug. 8 Advance.

Juniors Kameryn Etherington of Algona and Mackenzie Meister of Bishop Garrigan were chosen to the first-team all-state squad in their respective classes last week by the Iowa Softball Coaches Association.
Maddie Meister was selected to the Class 1A second unit, and the black-and-gold junior was joined by classmate Amanda Miller on the third team. Etherington's teammate, senior Nicole Smidt, was picked to the Class 3A third-team all-state unit.

Richie Gustin of Gilman continued to dominate the Arnold Motors Dirt Knight series as he won for the fourth time in five tries to highlight a huge night of dirt track racing at the Kossuth County Speedway on Aug. 1.
The big night of racing – the Hovinga Memorial Race – was night one of the two Kossuth County Fair races. The pits had a season-tying high of 119 cars, and a nice crowd cheered on their favorite drivers.
Get all the details in the Aug. 8 Kossuth County Advance.

A nice group of 90 cars made an appearance for the annual Harken Memorial Race on night number two of the county fair races at the Kossuth County Speedway on Saturday, Aug. 3.
The stock car class had the biggest car count of the evening with 23. There were 17 modifieds, 16 sports mods and 15 hobby stock cars. There were also six vintage cars at the track Saturday evening.
Get all the racing action in the Aug. 8 Kossuth County Advance.

Nine players return for the 14th annual Kossuth County Advance All-Area Softball first team. The 17-member squad is made up of two seniors, nine juniors, two sophomores, one freshman and three talented eighth-graders.
Nicole Smidt becomes the first player in the existence of the all-area softball squad to make the unit for a fifth time, while teammate Kameryn Etherington is on the team for the fourth consecutive summer.
Read about all the players in the Aug. 1 Advance.

They came into the state softball tournament as probably the biggest underdog in all of five classes, but a gutsy, gritty young Algona Bulldogs squad showed they belonged when the red and black gave top-rated Davenport Assumption all they could handle in a 3-2 loss.
The Knights scored three early runs and held off a valiant effort by the Bulldogs, who battled to the final out before succumbing to the two-time defending champs.
Get all the action in the July 25 Advance.

Heading into their Class 1A opening round state softball tournament against the No. 3 rated Clarksville Indians, the Bishop Garrigan Golden Bears knew they would be seeing one of the better pitchers in their class.
On July 22 at the Harlan Rogers Sports Complex, they may have seen the best: Kori Wedeking limited the black and gold to just a seventh-inning single by Emma Fogarty as the Indians defeated the ninth-ranked Golden Bears 5-0.