Sports

The Kee baseball team played its way to a 24-9 season record during its 2019 campaign, a mark that included a 10-2 result in Upper Iowa Conference (UIC) play to place the Hawks as this season’s UIC runner-up behind an 11-1 South Winneshiek team that played its way all the way to the Class 1A State Tournament this season. More than half of this season’s losses for the Kee diamond dwellers came from those South Winn Warriors, including both of the Hawks’ UIC losses and four consecutive one-run Kee losses that ultimately culminated in a 3-2 heart-breaker in eight innings that brought the Hawks’ 2019 season to a close in the semifinal round of the Class 1A District Tournament.

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The 2019 Waukon softball team played to a season record that equaled the most wins recorded since the last time first-year head coach Melissa Ward took the field for the Indians - as a player during her senior season in 2010. Ward helped pitch those 2010 softball Indians to a 20-13 season mark, and this season’s 14 wins with her now at the coaching helm of that same program equals the highest number of wins recorded since that 20-win season, the 2011 Indians also recording 14 regular season wins and the 2012 softball Tribe also riding a regional tournament run to another 14- win season.

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The Waukon High School wrestling team participated in the 2019 Luther College Team Wrestling Camp in Decorah. More than 800 wrestlers from eight-plus states attended the 2019 Luther College Wrestling Camps throughout July, making the series of camps some of the biggest camps in the country. Max Thomsen, All-American wrestler from the University of Northern Iowa, and Lee Fullhart, NCAA champion and four-time All-American from the University of Iowa, served as clinicians for Team Camp I.

The Kee softball team played to a 22-18 record during its 2019 campaign. That overall mark included a 14-2 result in Upper Iowa Conference (UIC) play, the first UIC losses for the softball Hawks since the last time they won fewer than 30 games in a season during their 2015 campaign.

Those two league defeats came at the hands of a North Fayette Valley team that finished as this season’s UIC champion with a record of 15-1. It was also a North Fayette team that last defeated the softball Hawks prior to this season, just one day beyond exactly four years earlier. In between those UIC defeats the Kee diamond dwellers had built an impressive streak of 70 consecutive wins in Upper Iowa Conference play. It also ended up being another UIC foe, Turkey Valley, that ultimately brought the Hawks’ 2019 campaign to a close in the quarterfinal round of the Class 1A regional tournament.

The Waukon baseball team played to an 8-29 overall record this season under first-year head coach Shane Schellsmidt. A team that most often fielded a line-up consisting of at least one player from every one of five varsity-eligible grade levels - eighth grade through graduated senior - worked to mesh together into a unit that seemed to book-end this season with, arguably, its best games of the season.

“I feel one of our greatest accomplishments was gaining experience, moving forward,” Coach Schellsmidt said. “Our young men had the opportunity to play a competitive schedule, strong teams, away from our comfort zone (on the road). As we’re attempting to build a foundation, competitive games are what you are striving for, allowing for growth to happen.”

The Harpers Ferry Fireflies traveled to Lawrence, KS for the 2019 Granny Basketball National Tournament the weekend of July 20. Sixteen teams entered the tournament, including the Sizzlers and Late Bloomers from Cedar Rapids, the Classic Roadrunners and Lady Redbirds from Des Moines, Manor Care Cuties from Dubuque, the Gray Tornadoes and Grayhawkers from Lawrence, KS, the Sunflowers/Meadowlarks from Olathe, KS, the Crushers from DeRidder, LA, the Specials from Oklahoma City, OK, the Twisters from Del City, OK, the Show Me Shooters from Jefferson City, MO, the Fire Ants from Georgetown, TX, the Old Glories from Harker Heights, TX and the Tonics from Louisburg, KS.

There will be  a cross country camp Monday through Friday, August 5-9 for boys and girls entering grades 7-12 in the Allamakee Community School District. As always, there is no fee for the camp, which will start at 6 p.m. at the Waukon High School cross country course.

Boys and girls entering seventh grade will need to have their completed physical form turned in to the junior high office, or they must bring them to camp, before they will be allowed to participate. All other grades can use their physical exam from the last school year for camp. Participants should bring a completed registration form to the first day of camp, August 5.
 

The Waukon High School and Middle School football coaching staffs will be hosting the 2019 Waukon Indian Middle School Football Camp August 13-15. The camp, run by the Waukon football coaching staffs with help from high school players, is a non-contact camp aimed at teaching the fundamentals of football offensive and defensive play.

Participants should plan to attend camp in shorts and a t-shirt, and should bring football cleats. Camp will take place at the middle school practice football field west of the Waukon High School parking lot.

Saturday, July 6, Harpers Ferry Boosters, Inc. hosted the Firecracker 5K Run/Walk. Over 150 runners and walkers were up early that Saturday morning for the annual Fourth of July holiday event which draws participants not only from all over Iowa and neighboring states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois but also from California and Alabama. Just before the 8 a.m. start time, Harpers Ferry Mayor Bill Nation welcomed everyone and reminded them that the new splash pad right next to the finish line would be running when they reached the end.

Sheila Diggins, President of Harpers Ferry Boosters, Inc., thanked everyone for participating, all the sponsors for their support and wished everyone a great race. When Kaylee Bachman, one of the runners, finished her impressive singing of the National Anthem, the horn sounded and the runners were off.

Matching up for a fifth time this season with the fellow Upper Iowa Conference (UIC) squad, South Winneshiek, that had accounted for half of its losses during the regular season - including a trio of single-run defeats in each of their three latest battles on the ballfield, the Kee baseball team was looking to reverse that sweeping trend in its Class 1A District 6 semifinals contest with the Warriors Tuesday, July 16 at the home of that only team to defeat the Hawks in UIC play this season. Through five-and-a-half innings, the baseball Hawks looked to be on their way to finally reversing their Warrior fortune, holding a 2-0 lead over South Winn, but the Warriors managed a two-run rally in the bottom of the sixth inning to tie the game and then pulled off some extra-inning magic to, once again, escape from the Hawks by a fourth consecutive single-run result, ending Kee’s baseball season with a 3-2 defeat in eight innings.