An update on former CCHS athletes who now play in college
Boomer playing hard for UMD Bulldogs
Kale Boomer, a senior safety on the University of Minnesota Duluth’s (UMD) football team, intercepted a pass in the Bulldogs’ last regular season game against Minnesota-Crookston. A four-year starter on special teams, Boomer played a lot of safety his senior year, but this was his first interception.
An all-conference quarterback and all-around athlete for the Cook County High School Vikings, Kale red-shirted his first year, 2013, then played a lot on special teams. He played quarterback for a few snaps in 2015 when the starter got the wind knocked out of him. He rushed for two yards and UMD held on to beat Bemidji State 14-9.
This season he had 26 tackles, sixth-best on a UMD defense that recorded three straight shutouts. Kale made 27 tackles for the Bulldogs last year, 13 coming on special teams to tie for the Bulldogs’ lead.
Boomer will play one more game in a Bulldog uniform. Although the Bulldogs just missed the playoffs they were invited to play in the Mineral Water Bowl, which pits a team from the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference against a team from the Mid-America Athletics Association. The game will be played on December 2 in Excelsior Springs, Missouri at Tiger Stadium.
Gruber-Schulz starts for Thunder Bay Lakehead Thunderwolves
The Thunder Bay Lakehead women’s basketball team is off to a great 5-1 start. The Thunderwolves most recently won 84-52 against the Algoma Thunderbirds (0-8) in the second game of their weekend doubleheader in Sault Ste. Marie.
A key starter for the Thunderwolves is Lily Gruber- Schulz, who wears number 11 for her team.
A thousand-point scorer while playing high school basketball for the Vikings, the sophomore forward from Grand Marais has earned a starting position on the Thunderwolves and so far is getting 28.7 minutes of playing time per game. Despite suffering a concussion and then fighting through a bad cold Gruber-Schulz has averaged 10.2 points and 8.2 rebounds during her minutes on the court.
If you can’t get up to Thunder Bay to watch Lily and her teammates play, the Lakehead games are livestreamed by OUAtv. Check the Lakehead schedule and google OUAtv; a 6 p.m. game starts at 5 p.m. USA time.
Joey Chmelik racing at St. Olaf
Carl Joseph (Joey) Chmelik, Grand Marais, competed on the St. Olaf cross country team the last four years. A perennial Division III distance running power, the Oles attract some of the nation’s best small college runners. With that said, Chmelik, a state cross country qualifier in high school for the Vikings, couldn’t crack the top seven runners on his team. Still, Chmelik’s teammates thought highly enough of him to name him as one of their captains for the 2017 season.
When contacted, Phil Lundin, the head coach for the St. Olaf cross country team, had this to say about Joey, “I would agree fully that Joey is a nice kid…..however, he is also kind, dependable, hard-working, and smart. Joey is an Ole through and through.”
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