New sports season gets underway this week for Randolph athletes

RANDOLPH — The Randolph Cardinal boys and girls basketball teams and the new wrestling team will see their first action of the new season this week.

The season will open Friday night when the Osmond Tigers come to town.

The Tigers will present quite a challenge as the Osmond boys basketball team finished last year as the Class D2 state runner-up.

The Tigers return all but one of their key players from the 2018-19 team.

Randolph returns a talented group of upperclassmen in Carter Schnoor, Keaton Backhaus, Justin Haselhorst, Tyson Junck, Sam Lemmons, Cadein Villwok, Sam Korth and Tristan Mosel.

The Cardinals will next take on Ponca in a Dec. 12 road contest.

Ponca presents another tough challenge, as the Indians took Class C2 thirdplace honors at last year’s State Tournament and won the state title in 2018 and 2017.

Ponca also returns an all-state player in Carter Kingsbury who will be very tough to defend, area coaches say.

The Lady Cardinals will be led this season by new head coach Marcus Papenhausen.

He has a talented and experienced group of girls to work with. They include: Kayla Nordhues, and Bobbi Winkelbauer, and juniors Jaiden Taylor, Gracie Eledge, Natalie Munter, Jenna Albers and Emmalee Harder.