THE BEAR FACTS
November 11, 2023
Good morning! I’m Violet Bode!
I’m Ella Schaaf!
And I’m Abbie Capesius! You’re listening to the “Bear Facts”. Happy Veterans Day from all of us at Bishop Garrigan High School.
The past three week’s we’ve had to record the “Bear Facts” before our football team played their playoff games. Because of that we talked around the results of those games and said we were crossing our fingers that the Bears had done what it took to get a victory. Well, this week we don’t have to talk around things. We can say straight out that the Bears have punched their ticket to the state championship game.
Bishop Garrigan faced #1-ranked Winfield—Mt. Union Wednesday morning in the UNI-Dome. The two halves of the game were very different. The Wolves scored first, while the Bears had two first half touchdowns called back because of penalties. At halftime Winfield—Mt. Union was up 20 – 6. The Bears came back charging, though. Caden Roethler ran for four second half touchdowns, and Garrigan’s defense held the Wolves scoreless. When time ran out the Bears were on top 34 – 20.
While Winfield—Mt. Union was heavily favored and ranked at the top of all the 8-man polls, Bishop Garrigan led in almost every category of stats in the semi-final game. Golden Bear Caden Roethler ran for 181 net yards, five times as many as the Wolves’ star running back Cam Buffington, who is a future Iowa Hawkeye. The Bears also led in passing percentage, kicking yards, sacks, first downs, and possession time.
After losing their first game of the season, the Bears have now won eleven in a row. They beat last year’s state champions, the 2020 state champions, and this year’s top-ranked team. They now advance to the state championship game, where they will face the Bedford Bulldogs from southwest Iowa. The game will be played at 9:30am next Thursday. If you can’t make it to the Dome, you can listen to the game right here on Algona radio.
One Golden Bear will have an even busier week than everyone else. Senior Benjy Trainer will leave the championship game and head from Cedar Falls over to Ames, where he’ll be part of the all-state choir. The all-state festival will be Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The festival concert is Saturday night at Iowa State Center, and it will be broadcast on Iowa Public Television Thanksgiving night. Congratulations to Benjy on being part of the all-state choir.
Last weekend the Golden Bear cheerleaders were down at the state fairgrounds in Des Moines for the state cheer competition. The Bears competed in the 1-A stunt group, and they ended up taking home a trophy for third place in the state. Ella Schaaf, Ava Hough, Ava Roethler, Reece Kemna, and Ava Snider competed for the Bears.
The cheerleaders have been to all the Golden Bear football games this fall. Whether the weather was hot or cold, rainy or windy, they’ve been on the sidelines cheering on the Bears. In addition to cheers, the girls have been doing one jumping jack for each Golden Bear point after every touchdown. The girls have done around 2,000 jumping jacks this season. In addition to the competition squad, the cheerleaders include Addison Kuper, Aubrey Meyer, Jaelyn Antoine, Harper Nelson, and Stormi Larson. Thanks for a great job to all the cheerleaders!
Last weekend was the regional swim meet, and Garrigan’s Brooke Ludwig competed with the Algona Bulldogs in the meet. There’s no classification in swimming, so Algona competes with schools that are 4-A and 5-A in other sports. While they didn’t make state, Brooke Ludwig did break an Algona record at the meet, swimming 200 meters in 2 minutes, 17.6 seconds. Congratulations, Brooke!
Today Bishop Garrigan is hosting the Top of Iowa Conference quiz bowl tournament. Originally the Bears had two teams entered in the tournament, but due to a drop from another school they will actually have three teams today. Students competing are Benjy Trainer, Ben Greteman, Brendan Plathe, Sam Plathe, Tate Foertsch, Thadd Kollasch, Sam Greteman, Amaury Thomas, Violet Bode, Hannah Merron, Zach Warren, and Marshall Bormann. Good luck, quiz bowl!
Garrigan’s DECA group will be down in Gilbert tomorrow for the district competition. DECA is an organization for future business leaders and entrepreneurs. Students in DECA at Garrigan include Sam Plathe, Brendan Plathe, Logan Nemmers, Zach Warren, Ava Hough, Ben Greteman, Ella Schaaf, and Violet Bode; as well as Molly Peterson, Sam Greteman,Reece Kemna, Brooke Ludwig, Daniel Meis, Hailee Reutzel, Haley, and Thadd Kollasch. Good luck, DECA!
Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on Caden Roethler. Here to tell you about him is Reagan Murphy.
Caden Roethler has been a huge part of the Golden Bear football team’s success this fall. He’s rushed for over 1,000 yards, racked up 36 tackles, and gotten two big interceptions this season. He was named player of the game in the state semi-finals. Caden comes from the West Bend area, where he enjoys life on the farm. His other big sport is track, where he has excelled in sprints and relays. We wish Caden good luck in the championship game next week, as well as in the future.
Thanks, Reagan. On our Golden Bear calendar today, there’s the conference quiz bowl tournament today at Garrigan. Tomorrow will be the district DECA competition at Gilbert.
Boys basketball practice begins on Monday. There’s also an honor band that day in Osage. Then next Thursday there’s the state football championship. The game is at 9:30 at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls.
The All-State Music Festival will be next Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in Ames. Finally next Saturday there’s quiz bowl at Algona High.
That’s the “Bear Facts” for this week. Thanks for joining us, and be sure to catch the show next week for more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.
GO BEARS!