Kee baseball team has season ended just shy of trying to improve on last year’s State Runner-Up finish with 2-0 Substate loss to South Winneshiek
Career finale includes 11 strike-outs ... Kee baseball senior pitcher Tyson Cota delivers a pitch in the Hawks’ 2-0 Class 1A Substate 3 loss to South Winneshiek at Decorah Tuesday, July 12. Cota surrendered four hits, one walk and one hit batter while striking out 11 South Winn players in the loss. View and find out how to purchase this photo and many more by clicking on the Photo Galleries link on this website.
Upper Iowa Conference colleague Warriors then fall to top-seed Remsen-St. Mary’s in first round
Not many would have thought that the 2022 Kee baseball season would have been ended shy of a return trip to the Class 1A State Tournament, and especially not by a team they had outscored by a 33-6 result in a three-game regular season sweep. What those many may not realize, however, is that the team that ended the veteran Hawks’ 2022 journey toward improving on their 2021 State Tournament Runner-Up finish in a Tuesday, July 12 Class 1A Substate 3 championship game played at Decorah is a South Winneshiek squad that has now qualified for the State Tournament in three of the past four seasons.
With one of those two teams representing northeast Iowa at the Class 1A season grand finale in, now, each of the last four seasons, three of those summers have seen the two teams have to go through one another in order to be that representative, with this season being no different. In each of those three postseason match-ups, the games played between the two clubs have also ended with no more than a two-run margin deciding a winner, with this season also being no different, as the Hawks suffered their second shut-out defeat of the season in surrendering a 2-0 loss to those fellow Upper Iowa Conference Warriors.
The loss ends Kee’s 2022 campaign with an overall record of 36-4 that includes a 17-1 mark that secured sole possession of the Upper Iowa Conference season championship this summer, with those 36 wins being the most by a Hawk baseball team since the 2011 season. With its third consecutive 2-0 postseason victory, South Winn advanced to the Class 1A State Tournament for the third time in the past four seasons, with the Warriors falling to top-seeded and undefeated Remsen-St. Mary’s, 6-0, in their Monday, July 18 first-round match-up at the season grand finale, marking the third time in four years and fourth time overall that South Winn has not advanced out of the first round of the State Tournament.
For more complete coverage, pick up this week's print edition or subscribe to our e-edition by clicking here.
