Sports

The Waukon boys cross country team made sure everyone knew there is no place like home when the Indians hosted their own Waukon Invitational Tuesday, September 19. Led by a dominating sweep of the top three individual placewinnings in the varsity meet, the distance Tribe claimed half of the race’s top 10 individual finishes with all of its scored runners, tallying just 21 team points to leave second-place Decorah behind by 30 points.

The Indians were next scheduled to compete at the Jesup Invitational Tuesday, September 26 before wrapping up their regular season schedule Tuesday, October 3 at the South Winneshiek Invitational in Calmar. The distance Tribe will then host the annual Northeast Iowa Conference Meet Tuesday, October 10.

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Coming off the program’s first loss in district play in six years one week earlier, playing in a steady rain and facing a team that had run for nearly 500 yards the week before, the Waukon football team overcame all those challenges to make it a happy Homecoming Friday, September 22 with a 34-20 win over Crestwood. After the two teams raced to a 14-14 scoreboard knot after just the first quarter and the grid Tribe faced a 20-14 deficit with less than two minutes before the halftime break, the Indians took control for the game’s remainder to rattle off 20 unanswered points and pitch a second-half shut-out for their Homecoming victory.

The Kee cross country team traveled its shortest distances to compete at great lengths in a pair of meets this past week, pulling double duty for the week at the Waukon Invitational Tuesday, September 19 and then just across the river at the Pirate Nation Invitational hosted by De Soto High School in Wisconsin Saturday, September 23. The Kee boys placed eighth in the larger Waukon Invitational and ran to a fourth-place team finish at De Soto, claiming an individual championship at that meet in Wisconsin.

“The Kee Hawks competed in two of their most challenging meets of the season and benefited from each,” Kee cross country coach Pat Wagner said. “Waukon’s course is challenging and the competition is excellent. De Soto’s cross country course provides the athletes with a grueling endurance test. All Hawk runners significantly improved their times at each race from 2022 to 2023. Thanks to all of our fans for coming and supporting the team.”

In a battle of 3-1 teams Friday, September 22, the Kee football team hosted Riceville in a home District 3 game on a rain-soaked evening that saw the visiting Wildcats come in and take away the ball six times, along with the victory, as the Kee grid squad fell by a 32-20 final result. With each team having just a single loss to Eight-Player District 3-leading Don Bosco, the game was essentially a battle for the runner-up spot in the district behind the perennial power Dons, but three each of fumbles and interceptions given away while getting just one interception in return limited the host Hawks enough to suffer their second consecutive loss of the season.

“We made too many mistakes to beat a good football team,” Kee football head coach Chad Winters shared. “To be minus-five in the turnover department and still having a chance late in the game speaks volumes to what type of team we can be if we play clean football.”

The Kee volleyball team recorded its first two match wins of this season, with both of those victories coming against a Postville squad still in search of its first victory this fall. The first of those triumphs came in Upper Iowa Conference (UIC) dual match play Tuesday, September 12 in sweeping fashion of three sets at home. A repeat of that feat came Saturday, September 16 at the Waukon Tournament, where another Hawk victory over Postville was their lone win in four matches that also included match losses in two sets to eventual tournament pool champion Crestwood, MFL/MarMac and North Crawford, WI.

Kee’s net squad is next scheduled to host Turkey Valley Tuesday, September 19 before traveling to Calmar to take on South Winneshiek Thursday, September 21. The Hawks will then pull another week of double duty, traveling to North Fayette Valley Tuesday, September 26 before hosting Central Elkader Thursday, September 28.

In its only competition of the week, the Waukon volleyball team played host to its annual Waukon Invitational Tournament Saturday, September 16. The tournament of nine total teams has typically been played in an early session of three pools of three teams in round-robin fashion, with the teams then being placed in a late session bracketed tournament according to their pool play results to play out to final placewinnings.

This season’s tournament, however, would only feature two pools of round-robin play, as limited availability of officials did not allow for the regular tournament format to be played out. Those two pools were split up between one four-team pool that played in an early-morning session of round-robin matches, with the tournament’s five other teams playing in their own round-robin pool later that morning into the afternoon.

The early-season success the Kee football team has been creating ran into a bit of a stumbling block that has been there for many teams over the years, as the Hawks traveled to Gilbertville Friday, September 15 to face a Don Bosco team rich in football and other athletic success. Taking its 3-0 season record into the home of a Don squad whose only loss this season has come to top-rated Gladbrook-Reinbeck to open this season, the Hawks used a strong second quarter flurry to fight back from a 20-0 first quarter deficit but couldn’t quite keep up that same comeback pace with their hosts in the second half, falling by a 68-34 final result.

The beginning of Class 2A District 3 play for the Waukon football team found the grid Tribe in a place where it has not been in the past five years, the short end of the scoreboard in a district football game. Traveling to West Union to open up their district schedule for the 2023 campaign against North Fayette Valley Friday, September 15, the football Indians saw an otherwise close battle, 14-7, at the halftime break get away to a 34-7 defeat for the Tribe’s first loss in a district football game since its second district contest of the 2017 season.

For those who didn’t give the Waukon football team much of a chance in hosting Class 3A top-10 rated Independence in the Tribe’s final non-district game of this regular season Friday, September 8, the Indian grid gang made believers out of many, while others may have walked away from that match-up with thoughts of “unbelievable” coursing through their mind.

Whatever the thought, there was no denying the final score, nor the effort that produced it, as the yet winless football Indians went toe-to-toe with the undefeated Mustangs from the larger school. Coming up with timely plays when they needed to, the grid Tribe slugged out just a 7-0 halftime lead and then held off a second half comeback effort by its Independence guests to claim a 28-19 triumph.

The Kee football team continued its early-season roll for 2023, remaining undefeated with a third consecutive win to start its fall campaign and doing so in convincing fashion with a 67-0 home win over Waterloo Christian in a rare Thursday night contest September 7. Even though Waterloo Christian is in its first-ever season of high school football, the Regents do have some players who have played in shared programs with other schools, and Kee football coach Chad Winters did not want his team overlooking its yet winless District 3 opponent after coming off a hard-fought victory less than a week earlier.

“The boys responded how I hoped they would, coming off of a big victory last Friday night,” Coach Winters said. “We wanted to play good football on both sides of the ball and jump out to an early lead. We were able to do that and more. We were extremely efficient on offense again. Defensively, we put in some new wrinkles this week to counter their aerial attack. ”