Sports

The Spirit Lake girls basketball team came up short in its new head coach's debut Monday in Sioux Rapids. The Indians fell 62-45 to Sioux Central in Todd Rogers' first game at the helm of the varsity program. The longtime Mediapolis coach took over one month after previous coach Naethan Hoaglund resigned on April 13. ...

The Harris-Lake Park girls basketball team dropped its season opener to former Cornbelt Conference rival Graettinger-Terril/Ruthven-Ayrshire on Tuesday, Nov. 24. The Titans topped the Wolves 51-36 in Lake Park. Harris-Lake Park faced a slim deficit after one quarter of play, as GT/RA took an 11-9 lead early. The Titans extended that lead to 26-21 at the half...

The Okoboji girls basketball team dropped its season opener in Sheldon on Tuesday, Nov. 24. The Pioneers fell 61-46 to the Orabs in Siouxland Conference action. According to coach John Adams — who was unable to coach the Pioneers due to a possible coronavirus exposure, but watched the game on Sheldon's YouTube channel — junior Montana Wilson scored the Pioneers' first six points, pushing her team to an early 6-2 lead over the Orabs. ...

A pair of area quarterbacks earned all-state recognition recently from the Iowa Print Sports Writers Association. Spirit Lake senior Brent Scott was a Class 2A Third Team All-State selection as a defensive utility player and Harris-Lake Park sophomore Tyce Gunderson was an 8-Player Third Team All-State selection at quarterback...

Area volleyball athletes and teams gave their fans plenty to cheer for this fall. Spirit Lake, Okoboji and Harris-Lake Park sported a combined record of 28-56 this season. For their efforts on the court and off, a total of eight area athletes earned postseason awards. Let's take a look back at the 2020 volleyball season...

The 2020 Iowa high school football season was unlike any other in recent memory. Schedules were shortened. The playoff format was altered. Everything from travel arrangements to sanitation was affected by the ongoing global pandemic. Still, Dickinson County teams were able to compete in 25 games combined. ...

Wind whipped across the fairways and greens of Lakeside Municipal Golf Course Saturday morning in Fort Dodge, making for a fitting end to a tumultuous 2020 cross country season. Competitors faced the gamut of Iowa weather this fall — heat, rain, cold, snow, sleet and wind — in a season held under the constant threat of a global pandemic...

The size difference was obvious as Spirit Lake squared off with fourth-ranked West Lyon's mammoth offensive and defensive fronts Friday night, but heart kept the Indians in the fight to the very end. Spirit Lake had several shots late but ultimately fell 12-0 to the Wildcats in the third round of the Class 2A football playoffs...

Over the past 35 years, I’ve been blessed to count Dave Genz as both a mentor and friend and to be part of the Clam Outdoors pro staff led by Genz. He’s known as Mr. Ice Fishing for his revolutionary ice fishing ideas that brought ice fishing literally out of the Ice Age. It’s hard for me to believe that this year marks the 40th anniversary of the original Trap portable shelter that helped revolutionize the sport of ice fishing...

It’s been said more than a lot of times that “fishing lures aren’t made to catch fish, they’re made to catch fishermen.” When I was first getting into the fishing business I thought that was a pretty accurate concept. I learned quickly that lures that didn’t catch fish didn’t stay on the market very long...

Blaze orange-clad hunters moving through Iowa’s timber will be a common sight when the first of two shotgun deer seasons open Dec. 5.  An estimated 120,000 hunters participate in the shotgun seasons, harvesting about half of the total number of deer for the year...

Hundreds of yellow ovals offset the brown and green coloration of each female brown trout ready to spawn at the Manchester Fish Hatchery. The splashes of color are signs that trout spawning season is in full swing. Brown trout are currently being spawned. Brood trout are brought to the hatchery from French Creek in Allamakee County. They are held at the hatchery across two spawning cycles then released back in French Creek, supplementing earlier generations of brown trout...