IOWA CITY — The Iowa football program landed the commitment of 2025 preferred walk-on quarterback, Ryan Fitzgerald on Friday afternoon. Fitzgerald is the son of former Northwestern head coach, Pat Fitzgerald and is a product of Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois.

A heavily recruited quarterback at the Group of 5 and FCS levels, Fitzgerald chose the walk-on opportunity over a variety of scholarship offers from programs like Toledo, Temple, Northern Illinois, Akron, Ball State, Illinois State and others.

During his junior campaign for the Ramblers, Fitzgerald finished with 2,690 yards and 34 touchdowns. He led Loyola Academy to its second-straight state title, finishing the season with a 14-0 record, and was named the Conference Player of the Year for his efforts.

Fitzgerald’s commitment comes exactly a week following his teammate, scholarship 2025 ATH Drew MacPherson. He is the first PWO commit of the 2025 recruiting cycle for Iowa and joins scholarship quarterback and three-star gun-slinger, Jimmy Sullivan in the class.

WICHITA FALLS, Texas (KAUZ) – The Jacksboro Tigers and the Iowa Park Hawks meet every year in regular district play. This year they meet again with the chance to go to the regional semifinals.

Game one was held at Hoskins field in Wichita Falls on Friday night. Both starting pitchers had great games that kept the score tied at zero through five innings.

Jacksboro would eventually score first in the fifth inning and never look back.

The Tigers get the win, 5-0. Game two is Saturday at 2pm in Graham.

Copyright 2024 KAUZ. All rights reserved.

IOWA GREAT LAKES (KTIV) – Much of Northwest Iowa is made up of smaller, rural communities. Many of those came together to create a SWAT unit, in a partnership that’s lasted decades.

The High-Risk Entry and Arrest Team, or HEAT, is made up of law enforcement officers from 28 agencies, including 11 sheriff’s offices and 17 police departments. The team covers nearly 6,500 square miles across 12 counties in northwest Iowa and southwest Minnesota, serving nearly 132,000 people. Averaging between 6 and 12 calls per year, the team is called in whenever necessary.

It’s a partnership that was created in the 90s to ensure no matter the incident, trained and skilled officers would be ready to serve at a moments notice.

“The chiefs and sheriffs of the region got together and knew that they couldn’t support a tactical team on their own,” said HEAT Commander Todd Schillinger, also an officer with the Arnolds Park Police Department. “So they pooled their resources, which was a great idea. And that just happened to happen in northwest Iowa, Southwest Minnesota. You get across that state lines, but all those things were taken care of back in the late 90s. The team went operational in 1999. And we’ve been going and growing since then.”

Schillinger helps coordinate coverage when a department needs the assistance on a call.

“They can range from high-risk arrest warrants to barricaded suspects, high-risk drug warrants, anything that the agencies aren’t either equipped or have the manpower or the training for, we act as that support unit,” he explained. “Without that, without that support team, I don’t know. You just couldn’t pull that many trained people in with specialty equipment with the smaller departments.”

Schillinger says having a close relationship with so many different agencies in the region has been a big benefit for not only the fellow officers, but their communities as well.

Copyright 2024 KTIV. All rights reserved.