An audible sigh of relief from the New Prague boys’ ice hockey team was just what the doctor ordered as the Trojans won a big game against a section opponent last week.
But New Prague, 7-9-2 overall, endured a hard return to reality two days later with a tough loss to Benilde-St. Margaret’s, the Trojans’ second loss to the private school powerhouses this year.

The Polars and Ptarmigans will meet for the 65th time Dec. 28, noon, at Memorial Park.
All New Prague Alumni are on a team. There will be a pregame meeting at Fishtale Grill starting at 9am and an awards ceremony and meal at City Club following the game.
The spirited rivalry has the Polars leading the series with an overall record of 32 wins and 19 losses against the Ptarmigans. The teams have tied 13 times.
More information and rosters can be found at ballcharts.com/snobowl

With only three proven starters back from a year ago, New Prague High School’s girls’ hoops team faced a question when it started the season last week against Northfield. How would this year’s team come out of the gate compared to the previous year’s squad?

New Prague High School’s girls volleyball team went up against a challenging Lakeville North team in the Section 1AAAA semifinals Wednesday, Oct. 30. The Trojans fought hard, but their season ended in a 3-1 setback.
“Our match against Lakeville North was a great challenge, and it was great to see each player rise to the occasion,” said New Prague head coach Greg Sayuk.
The Panthers won the first set, 25-11.

New Prague High School swept visiting Rochester Mayo, 3-0, in the first game of the Section 1AAAA quarterfinals Wednesday, Oct. 23.
The No. 3 seeded Trojans hosted Rochester Mayo, No. 6 seed, and won 25-16, 25-16 and 25-15. Statistics on the Trojans performance were not immediately available.
New Prague will now face No. 2 seed Lakeville North Wednesday, Oct. 30, 7 p.m., at Lakeville North High School. The Panthers swept Rochester Century Tuesday night, 25-15, 25-11 and 25-9.
For more information, see an upcoming print edition of The New Prague Times.

Girls win honors; Wolf runs to HM
Throughout the season, the New Prague cross-country runners have been training to perform their best when the time was right. That approach paid off with fast times and honors earned during the Metro West Conference meet last Tuesday afternoon at Hyland Greens in west Bloomington.
The NP girls earned a third-place finish in the team standings and runners winning all-conference and allconference/honorable mention honors.

New Prague’s plans of advancing swimmers to the state meet head into overdrive in the next few weeks now that the regular season has come to an end.
The Trojans finished sixth at the True Team section meet last weekend in Lakeville, Oct. 11-12. Coach Cassie Kieffer said swimmers performed well against challenging competition. The Trojans finished with 880 points. Rochester Century won the event with 1,379.5 points.
The Trojans hosted Orono, one of the state’s top teams, Tuesday night, Oct. 15. Details of the meet were not available when The New Prague Times went to press.

Scoring all its points in the opening half and then turning the game over to the defense in the second half, the New Prague High School football team heads into the section playoffs with a win last Wednesday, Oct. 16, over St. Cloud Tech.

Running on a short week where they had competed the previous Saturday in Mounds View, New Prague’s cross-country runners enjoyed their lone home meet of the season with solid results Tuesday, Sept. 24.
After nine days off to rest, recover and train, New Prague will be in Owatonna today, Thursday, Oct. 3, for an invitational race.
NP Invitational
The NPHS boys enjoyed a strong day Tuesday, Sept. 24, finishing third at their home invitational race at Cedar Lake Farm Regional Park.

New Prague’s girls’ soccer team is working to build momentum as it heads for the section soccer playoffs next week.
New Prague faced Benilde-St. Margaret’s Tuesday. Details were not available when The New Prague Times went to press.
At 9-2-3, the Trojans will head south today, Thursday, Oct. 3, 4:30 p.m., to face Mankato East. The section playoffs open Tuesday, Oct. 10, 5 p.m., at Trojan Stadium.

After a dry spell spanning longer than veteran players want to remember, the Union Hill baseball team has enjoyed success at the state amateur baseball tournament. The Bulldogs topped St. Peter Friday, Aug 16, in Belle Plaine.
The Bulldogs, Montgomery and Waterville will be the three area teams in action this weekend at the Minnesota Baseball Assoc.’s State Tournament. Three area teams – New Market, Webster and Elko all suffered tough season-ending losses in the tournament’s opening round.

After splitting games against St. Patrick and St. Benedict, the New Prague Orioles, Union Hill and the other teams in the Dakota, Rice, Scott League are preparing for post-season play.
The Orioles will open post-season play Tuesday, July 30. The bottom four teams in the DRS will play a best two-of-three series to determine the seventh and eight seeds in the region. The region tournament will begin Sunday, Aug. 4, with the seedings being finalized in the next week.

Despite a solid pitching performance from a pair of Irish hurlers, Hampton pulled off a walk-off win over visiting St. Patrick Sunday, July 14, in a Section 1 thriller.
With the game deadlocked at 2-each, the Cardinals scored the game-winner in the bottom of the ninth inning. It spoiled St. Patrick’s hopes of stealing a road win from the Cardinals.

St. Patrick built an early lead and then held off Hampton Sunday afternoon, June 30, at Bonin Field.
The Irish took a 5-0 lead with two runs in the fourth inning and two more in the fifth frame. Hampton rallied with a three tallies in the sixth inning before St. Patrick upped its lead to 6-2 with a solo run in the home half of the eighth inning, a run that provided to be the game-winner for the home team.

A seventh-inning home run broke a 3-3 tie and allowed Elko to top its crosstown rival, the New Market Muskies, 7-3, Friday evening, June 21, at Fredrickson Field.
The Express jumped to a 2-0 lead in the second inning only to have the Muskies tie the game in the third.
Elko retook the lead in the third, 3-2, in the home half of the third frame. New Market rallied with a run in the sixth inning to even the score at 3-apiece.

Union Hill got just enough offense and defense this past week to win a pair of Dakota-Rice Scott League games.
Wins over Montgomery Friday, June 7, and Veseli Sunday, June 9, improved the Bulldogs’ record to 6-2 in the DRS, just behind league-leading New Prague. The Bulldogs will host the Orioles Sunday, June 16, 2 p.m.
Bulldogs 8, Veseli 6 Two runs in the eighth inning gave the Bulldogs the win at Veseli Sunday, June 9.