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Sports Memories by Tom Jones

10 years

• The Albert Lea girls’ golf team qualified for the state tournament with a first-place finish at the Section 2AA meet held at the New Prague Golf Club. Bailey Sandon shot a 93 to lead the Tigers.
• The Albert Lea boys’ golf team qualified three players for the state meet after their finishes at the Section 2AA meet also held in New Prague. Alex Syverson shot a 78, Brady Loch a 79 and Jack Pulley an 83 to qualify them to state.
• The Albert Lea baseball team defeated Norwood-Young America 7-5 in the Section 2AA consolation final game. Chris Enderson picked up the win for the Tigers, pitching a complete game with six strike outs. The Tigers needed to defeat Glencoe-Silver Lake twice to capture the section championship and advance to state.

20 years

• Albert Lea’s Corey Kuipers placed third in the 100 and fourth in the 200 and 400-meter dashes at the Big Nine Conference meet in Mankato.
• Brandon Klukow and Jared Butler of the Albert Lea Tigers baseball team were named to the Big Nine All-Conference team. Brock Sorenson and Ryan Truesdell were named honorable mention.
• In the opening round of the Section 1 Class A baseball tournament, Glenville-Emmons was defeated by Rushford-Peterson 8-4. Josh Kluender accounted for all four runs for the Wolverines with a 350-foot grand slam in the fifth inning.
• Albert Lea’s Annika Smed placed sixth in the high jump and Andrea Irvine took ninth in the discus to qualify them for the finals of the section track and field meet being held at Carleton College in Northfield.

50 years

• Senior Dave Berg was named Most Valuable Player at the Albert Lea Tigers season-ending baseball banquet. Paul Sherman and John Dziura were named co-captains for the following season.
• The Minnesota Vikings announced that veterans Bill Brown, Gary Larsen, Milt Sundae and Grady Alderman would not be with the team in the upcoming season.
• The Albert Lea boys’ golf team battled high winds at the University of Minnesota Golf Course and claimed second place at the state golf tournament. Mark Knutson tied for second in the individual meet with an 18-hole score of 72.
• Gary Koeder was coordinating a summer basketball program for girls in elementary, junior high and senior high that was to be held at the high school gym.
• New Richland’s Dave Tappe shattered the state meet record for the two-mile run with a time of 9:23.6 at the event held in St. Cloud.
• Warroad native Henry Boucha jumped from the Minnesota North Stars to play hockey for the Minnesota Fighting Saints where he played 87 games over two seasons.
• John Nelson pitched a one-hit shutout and struck out 13 batters as Eastside Standard defeated Local P6 7-0 in YM-YMCA Little League baseball play. Steve Roberts added a double in the win.
• Rick Chinberg of Albert Lea became the youngest golfer to record a hole-in-one at the Green Lea Golf Course. The 13-year-old achieved the milestone using a five-wood on the 148-yard fourth hole.
• Albert Lea’s Marilyn Claassen placed eighth in the discus preliminaries at the state girls’ track and field meet in Richfield but missed the cut-off for the finals by two inches.
• At the state boys’ track and field meet held in St. Cloud, Albert Lea’s Mark Simunds finished fourth in the 440-yard dash with a time of 50.4.

Alumni update

Stacey (Gildner) Torman, a 1982 graduate of Albert Lea High School, was recently inducted as a Legend of the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association at a banquet held in May. She is the first women to be certified by this group and second women to be named as a Legend in this field. She is the director of athletic performance for Olympic sports at the University of Alabama-Birmingham.