The Bear Facts
May 31, 2014
Good morning, y’all! I’m Jake Hamilton!
I’m Devin Degen!
And I’m Levi Bernhard! Thanks for joining us for our last “Bear Facts” episode of the year, which we’re recording down in the Big Easy—New Orleans, Louisiana.
School’s out, but the quiz bowl team has been in New Orleans to compete in the 2014 National Academic Championships. This was Garrigan’s fifteenth trip to nationals, and the seventh year in a row we’ve qualified for the tournament. It turned out to be our best showing ever at nationals.
As is always the case, Bishop Garrigan was one of the smallest schools entered in the National Academic Championships. Quiz bowl isn’t classed, so most of the schools we competed against were many times our size. We ended up with a winning record overall, and for the first time in school history we made playoffs.
The teams we beat were Chapin High School from El Paso, Texas; Sparkman High School from the Huntsville, Alabama area; White Plains High School from suburban New York City; and Cleveland High School from Mississippi. In preliminary competition we had narrow losses to schools from Benton, Arkansas and Gadsden, Alabama.
On the way to making playoffs the team swept two straight lightning rounds—one on civics and government and the other on U.S. Presidents. Getting all ten questions right in a single category earned us a twenty-point bonus for each sweep. The four wins earned us the #12 seed going into0 playoffs.
In the opening round of playoffs we faced Saratoga Springs, a town in the Adirondack Mountains just north of Albany, New York. It was a back and forth game, and we led after the third of four rounds of the game. Saratoga came back, though, and they ended up taking the game by a final score of 325 – 235.
In addition to playing seven games, we crammed in a lot of sightseeing on our trip. We saw the French Quarter and Garden District in New Orleans; took in the sights, sounds, and smells of Bourbon Street; went to mass at the oldest cathedral in North America; and saw the National World War II Museum. We also enjoyed a boat tour of Honey Island Swamp and relaxed on the Gulf Coast beaches in Mississippi.
Levi Bernhard played every minute of every game at nationals. Other players included senior Jake Hamilton, juniors Hannah Bernhard and Taylor Illg, and sophomore Deviin Degen. Something unique was that juniors Zach and Tony Kollasch came down to join us in New Orleans after the tournament had already started. That’s because they’d been running in the state track meet in Des Moines.
The Bears had twenty-three events entered at state track, and we made a decent showing. The Golden Bear girls finished eleventh in the state. The girls’ most impressive finish was in the 4 x 200 relay, where they won the state championship and ended up first in the state. Taylor Frideres, Johanna Vaske, Aisha Miller, and Nicole Behr finished the race in just 1 minute, 46.84 seconds.
The girls 4 x 400 with Taylor Frideres, Gracie Behr, Aisha Miller, and Nicole Behr finished fifth in the state, and Nicole Behr placed sixth in both the 100 and 200 meter dash. Other girls finishes include Johanna Vaske at 10th in the high jump, the sprint medley finishing 11th, and both the 4 x 800 relay and Emily Riesenberg in the 1500 with 15th place finishes at state.
On the boys side, Brayton Loss was #11 and Zac Kibby #13 in the long jump, while Christian Matthews finished 12th in the high jump. Corey Weydert finished 16th in the shot put, while Cameron Langerman was #22. The boys 4 x 8 relay was 7th, the 4 x 2 was 17th, and the 4 x 4 was 24th. The 4 x 100 relay took 18th place, but they were less than 2 seconds away from the winners.
Tony Kollasch finished 12th in the 800-meter run and 16th in the 1600. Tyler Schnurr was 21st in the 400-meter hurdles, and Gibson Behr was 23rd overall in the 200-meter dash. Gibson also competed in the 100-meter dash, and the shuttle hurdle relay also ran at state. Congratulations to all the state track qualifiers!
The boys state golf tournament is being held this weekend in Marshalltown, and once again Bishop Garrigan is part of the action. The Bears scored 330 at districts, the third best score in the state. The state golfers include junior Jess Marlow and sophomore Zach Boelter, both of whom shot 82s at districts; freshmen Donovan Berte and Logan Capesius, who scored 83; senior Michael Berke, who shot an 85; and sophomore Andrew Lallier who hit 87 strokes at districts. Good luck to Coach Dean Lallier and all the golf team as they compete at state!
School is out for summer, so we don’t have our standard Golden Bear calendar. The baseball and softball teams compete almost every night for the next six seeks. Special events include the CYO tournament June 6 and 7. Softball playoffs start Monday, July 7, while district baseball begins Saturday, July 12.
There will be a lot of class reunions on Founder’s Day weekend, July 11th and 12th. When August comes we hope to be breaking ground on the school addition that’s the result of our capital campaign. Fall sports practices start at the beginning of August, and school will begin again on Tuesday, August 19.
That wraps up the twenty-second season of the “Bear Facts”. Thanks to KLGA for keeping us on the air all these years and to the sponsors for making it all possible. We’ll be off for the summer, but we hope to be back again next fall to bring you more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.