Sports

The Waukon girls basketball team completely reversed its fortune from a week earlier, bouncing back from a winless final full week of January to post nothing but wins in its two games this past week. The Lady Indians began the week with a 66-53 road triumph at Spring Grove, MN Monday, January 29 before wrapping up the week with a  54-9 record-setting win at Charles City Friday, February 2.

Tristan Hansmeier achieves milestone 100th career win with semifinals technical fall

The 2017-2018 wrestling season came to a close for all but two members of the Waukon wrestling team Saturday, February 3 at the mat Tribe’s Class 2A Sectional 10 Tournament held at Luther College in Decorah. Those two wrestlers - the brother tandem of senior Tristan and junior Miles Hansmeier - were the only two Indians to wrestle to the required top-two finish in their respective weight classes at the tournament to earn further advancement down the postseason wrestling road, pacing the Indians to 82.5 team points and a sixth-place finish in the tournament’s final team standings.

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The Waukon boys basketball team played to a split of what turned out to be its only two games played this past week, both of those coming in Northeast Iowa Conference (NEIC) play at home. The Indians completed a regular season sweep of Crestwood with an 85-77 home win Tuesday, January 23 before being handed that same fate by Waverly-Shell Rock in a 62-36 loss at home Friday, January 26. A Monday, January 22 home game with Spring Grove, MN also scheduled for this past week was postponed by winter weather to Monday, January 29.

The Waukon girls basketball team’s Northeast Iowa Conference (NEIC) standing took a bit of a hit this past week at the hands of the only two rated teams in the conference. Facing both Class 3A top-rated Crestwood and Class 4A 14th-rated Waverly-Shell Rock within three nights of one another, the Indians ended up playing through their first winless week of the season, falling to the undefeated Cadets on the road, 63-41, Tuesday, January 23 before suffering a scoreless fourth quarter to allow a late lead to erode away to a 47-34 loss at home to the Go-Hawks Friday, January 26. A Monday, January 22 non-conference game at Prairie du Chien, WI was canceled due to winter weather conditions and will not be made up this season.

In its only competition of the week, the Kee boys basketball team stayed within its own county and conference, but also stayed within its own recent trend of game results with a 62-37 loss at Postville Friday, January 26. A strong first half effort that left the Hawks nearly even with the host Pirates at the halftime break gave way to double-digit margins in each of the game’s latter two frames to allow Postville to pull away to its decisive final edge.

The Waukon bowling teams turned in a busy latter part of the week this past week, competing on back-to-back days in a couple different formats. The Indians first split a dual match at Sumner-Fredericksburg Friday, January 26, with the Waukon girls suffering a 1776-1954 defeat and the boys picking up a 2379-2124 victory.

The two teams then hit the road right away again the next day to bowl in a tournament format at Waterloo against 11 other teams Saturday, January 27. The Indian girls finished 10th in the initial 12-team Baker game competition, with the Waukon boys finishing sixth in their competition, a team finish good enough to advance on to the eight-team head-to-head bracket competition played in a best-of-three format, where the Indians then fell to Decorah in each of their first two games to have their tournament day brought to a close.

The Waukon wrestling team brought its regular season to a close this past week, making up a final dual meet date before competing in its final Northeast Iowa Conference (NEIC) competition of the season as well. The mat Indians fell in their final dual meet competition, a double-dual north of the border in Minnesota that included a 45-33 loss to the host school, Fillmore Central, and a 37-25 loss to St. Charles, MN. The mat Tribe then wrestled its final NEIC competition of this season, finishing sixth in the final team standings of the Northeast Iowa Conference Tournament wrestled at Waverly-Shell Rock Saturday, January 27, with senior Tristan Hansmeier’s runner-up finish at 170 pounds being the Indians’ best individual finish of the day.

Bill Plein, a 1976 Waukon High School graduate and current head wrestling coach for the Columbus Community/Winfield-Mt. Union wrestling team, achieved a coaching milestone Thursday, January 18 when his Wildcat mat charges recorded a pair of dual meet victories at Mediapolis High School. In his 28th season as head coach of the Wildcat mat program, initially as Columbus Junction High School, the first of those two Thursday evening mat wins, a 56-22 triumph over Mediapolis, marked the 400th career coaching victory for Plein, making him just the 12th coach in Iowa high school wrestling history to ever achieve that standard. A 60-18 victory for the Wildcats over Wapello High School in their second dual of the evening pushed Plein’s career win mark to 401.

The Waukon bowling teams wrapped up the home portion of their schedules with a Friday, January 19 hosting of Oelwein. The end result of that final home match-up wasn’t much of a fond farewell to that home venue for the season, as the Indian girls fell by a score of 2204-1995 and the Waukon boys allowed just a four-pin opening round deficit to get away to a 2527-2464 defeat.

The Waukon girls fell victim to an Oelwein team that had all six of its players bowl well over a 200 series, while the Indians managed just half of that feat to trail by an early 1469-1226 margin. Each team had just one player roll a 300 series to lead their respective squads, Oelwein sophomore Brielle Belden rolling an event-high 321 series and junior Emma Roe leading the Indian effort with a 305 series comprised of consistent game totals of 152 and 153.

In its only competition slated for this past week, the Waukon girls basketball team had very little trouble with an Oelwein team sporting just a single win in Northeast Iowa Conference play. Having stifled the Huskies to a new school record defensive total of just 11 points the last time the two teams met, the Indians were a little more generous this time, but not nearly enough to prevent another dominating victory over Oelwein, 62-23, Friday, January 19 at home.