Sports

Cherokee junior running back Cael Wood rambled for 179 yards on 24 carries behind some unselfish lead blocking by teammate Trevor Lundquist in a 44-0 “Senior Night” victory over MVAOCOU last Friday night. “Wood ran really well and our blocking up front was good,” said Cherokee Coach Tony Gunter. “The two-back set with Trevor (Lundquist) taking on the role of lead blocker worked out well,” he added...

Cherokee youth joined the varsity Braves in honoring the flag prior to the homecoming football game here last week. A large crown attended the game in which the Braves lost to East Sac 56-0.

With the fast approaching high school volleyball, cross country and football tournaments and playoffs just around the bend, a reminder to our area basketball and wrestling coaches to please take time and return questionnaires we sent out two weeks ago seeking information on the upcoming winter sports season...

Some 514 middle school through senior high runners representing 11 school districts battled a hilly Cherokee Golf Course and significant winds here Tuesday afternoon in the annual running of the Cherokee Cross Country Invitational. Not only were there over 500 runners, the course overflowed with throngs of encouraging fans as they cheered on runners on this beautiful fall afternoon...

It was ugly early. It never got better for a stunned Cherokee football team here last Friday night. In fact, in what is one of the worst whippings in modern Cherokee football memory, as East Sac’s Raiders dominated the Braves everywhere and slapped an overwhelming 56-0 win on the board to spoil the hosts Homecoming 2019...

STORM LAKE - Cherokee’s “A” and “B” teams recorded 3-0 wins over Storm Lake volleyball teams here Thursday. Cherokee’s “A” team improved to 4-0 on the season with set wins over Storm Lake of 25-18, 25-14 and 16-14. Paris Frederickson was perfect in serves at 17-17 and logged five aces to lead Cherokee’s serving statistics...

SIOUX RAPIDS - Sioux Central’s Rebels raced to a 35-0 Class A District football win here Friday night over a winless Ridge View Raptor squad. It was all the Rebels, now 3-2, in this district opener. The visiting Raptors never got untracked and fell to 0-5 on the season...

MARCUS - MMCRU’s Royals forfeited their game last Friday with LeMars Gehlen due to several circumstances. However, the Royals are still on tap to play South’OBrien at Paullina this Friday. On Monday morning, MMCRU Coach Kyle Oswald issued this statement:...

SANBORN - Cherokee Middle School cross country runners turned in respectable performances here Monday afternoon led by Aurora Christianensen’s ninth place finish of 9:53 over the 1.4-mile course. Another top finisher for Cherokee was Bryce Robinson with an 11th place in 9:28...

Cherokee’s volleyball Braves finished 2-3 in matches at the Cherokee Invitational Tournament here last Saturday. “We played pretty well at times, but still struggle some with playing at the same level of consistency throughout a match,” said Cherokee Head Coach Charity Anderson. “We also need to keep working on preventing teams from going on runs and cutting down on our unforced errors...

PAULLINA - State-ranked South O’Brein made it four in a row this season by dominating Sioux Central here Friday night in a 42-16 win. The Wolverines take their 4-0 record into district place this week on the road to Harley-Melvin-Sanborn before rounding out the season at home against MMCRU Oct. 4, at LeMars Gehlen on Oct. 11, home against Akron-Westfield Oct. 18 and at Hinton on Oct. 25...

That Big, Bad Bob is Marcus native Bob Brady who will later this month be inducted into the Iowa Men’s Fast-pitch Softball Hall of Fame. Hell, I put him in there. Me and along the way a team of other talented, local fast-pitch icons like Dan Schuver, Gene Anderson, Larry Goose Galvin, Harlan Roos, Ronnie Miller, Gary Slota, Bob Nelson, Ron Ogren, Pete Mathern, Mark Ammons, Doug Miller, Chris Campbell, Tommy Estes, Dick Hirschman, Shorty Steffens, Jim Rogge, Roger Smith, Ronnie Means, Billy Brady, last but never least brother Giles, and probably a few others I can’t remember. ...

AURELIA - On Friday the 13th, under the light of a harvest moon, South O’Brien’s talented running back Tristan Wilson slipped through a crease in the defense and busted a big one for an 83 yard touchdown. That TD and the successful two-point conversion that followed gave SOS an 8-0 lead in the second quarter. Then a late game score capped a 15-0 win over a now 1-2 Alta-Aurelia...

DA GROVE - A high powered Class 2A OABCIG Falcon offense racked up 383 yards of offense in a lopsided 64-19 win over Class 1A Cherokee here Friday. Falcon junior quarterback Cooper Dejean hit 14 of 18 passes for 176 yards and three touchdowns, and rushed five times for 73 yards and two more touchdowns, while the hosts rushing game generated 207 yards on the ground...

BRUNSVILLE - On a hot and humid Tuesday afternoon, Cherokee’s cross country’s contingent competed again several 3A and 4A teams. “This was a little dog in a big dog fight type of meet for us,” said Cherokee Coach Matt Hoskinson. “I’m extremely happy with how we competed against the bigger schools as several of the teams were ranked team as well as featuring several individually ranked competitors.”...

JaMae Nichols and Tegan Slaughter had 15 kills each and Camille Zwiefel logged 43 assists in Cherokee 3-1 volleyball win over Emmetsburg here Thursday. Grace Anderson and Aliyah Graybill also had strong games at the net with nine and seven kills, respectively, for the Braves...

Just last month, the Iowa High School Athletic Association sent out a statewide release putting all fans on notice. The release came from the desk of Karissa Niehoff, executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations, and from Tom Keating, executive director of the Iowa High School Athletic Association...

The Cherokee Braves traveled to Storm Lake last Friday for a chance to get back the Battle Axe from the Tornadoes in a season opener. The Battle Axe remains comfortable in Storm Lake for the third year in a row as Storm Lake took down the Braves 41-6. (The last time the Braves beat Storm Lake and won the Battle Axe was in the fall of 2015 when Cherokee won 27-22)...

SPENCER - “Top to bottom, our kids rand fantastic and we could not be happier withe opening meet,” commented Cherokee Head Cross Country Coach Matt Hoskinson following his team’s effort here last week. “We had some young kids really step up in their first meet and our veterans ran strong,” added Hoskinson...

A year ago River Valley’s Garrett Trapp was sidelined for the season when he suffered a concussion in the second game of the 2018 football campaign. Well, Trapp is back and after miss most of last season, he’s making up for lost time. Last Friday night, Garrett, a 5-11, 150-pound quarterback, turned in an impressive individual performance to earn Chronicle-Times Prep of the Week honors...

There are 30 Braves listed on this year’s roster headed by former Gehlen Catholic head coach and Cherokee’s new football boss Tony Gunter. Gunter replaces Travis Schipper, who resigned the football coaching post here at the end of last season. In seven seasons as head coach here, Schipper went 15-49...

Josh Landhuis, Cherokee Activities Director, has been busy upgrading the trophy case at Washington High School. “Our main objective in revamping the trophy case was to recognize all our former players who received state honors,” he said. “We had a large numbers of photos and plaques that were being stored underneath the trophy case and not being displayed due to lack of space. ...

It was a hot time in the old town last weekend. Class reunions, anniversary celebrations, birthday bashes. As my favorite mother-in-law Marilyn BeVard used to say, “we had it going on.” So, Cherie, my better half by a long ways, joined me in slapping a shine on our best pair of tennies and crashed a couple parties...

A well deserved “tip of the hat” to Aurelia’s Becky Bloom and Cherokee’s Lyndsay Wolfswinkel for offering a “Beach Volleyball” recreational league for area girls in seventh and eighth grades this past month. We witnessed some of the action recently and commend Bloom and Wolfswinkel for the format in which this program is designed. Parents have no involvement except to get the kids to the courts...

Alta-Aurelia led the way in landing four players on prep baseball’s Northwest All-District teams released by the Iowa High School Baseball Coaches Association earlier this week. In Class 2A, Alta-Aurelia’s Warriors, who finished 17-10 on the season, placed junior Logan McCoy on the All-District First Team, and three players - sophomore Trey Engelmann, junior Michael Ryherd and senior Aric Stephan, on the All-District Second Team...

After attending the Iowa Girls’ Athletic Union sponsored State Softball Championships in Fort Dodge last week, one thing became very clear - pitching is the straw that stirs the drink in this prep sport. No doubt, pitching in baseball is important as well, but in high school girls’ softball, it’s paramount. It’s apparent that if you have a good pitcher on the roster, you legitimately have a crack at a state championship...

That Mr. Anonymous fellow struck again in this sweet little slice of Iowa, last week privately footing the bill for entry fees for the Cherokee High School cross country teams in the popular, growing, annual 5K Run/Walk/Stroll Glow Run organized by Cherokee Trails Committee, among others...

FORT DODGE - Alta-Aurelia’s wild ride to the state tournament came to a screeching halt here late Thursday night in a 3-0 loss to Class 2A State Champion North Linn. The loss ends AA’s season at 22-10 after making their second straight appearance in the state tournament...

FORT DODGE - When this high school softball season opened in May, Alta-Aurelia’s wasn’t on anybody’s radar to play for a state championship. Hmmmm, someone forgot to tell the Warriors. On Wednesday, the Warriors eliminated No. 2 seed East Marshall 2-1 to gain a berth in last night’s Class 2A Championship game against No. 1 seed North Linn (41-4)...

A gratifying benefit in this business of covering local high school sports is the people you meet a long the way. This work provides me with the opportunity to build relationships with the folks I work with on a daily basis. Many of those acquaintances become lifelong friends, and I’m humbled to have a long list of players and coaches who remain close friends to this day...

Sometimes I get tired, but never as tired as I get when I hear gifted athletes cry about how hard they worked while on their journey to fame and fortune and being drafted into the pros or recruited by a major D-1 college. Let’s see…you’re 6-8, 250 pounds, and can jump over LeBron’s ego. After striking that sperm/egg lottery, you picked up a basketball, found a basket, and played hoops for 18 years. Hey, tough gig. Where do I sign up?...