Sports

Kaitlyn Krambeer, a sixth grade student at Waukon Middle School and the daughter of Brad and Becky Krambeer of rural Waukon, is a Level 6 gymnast who recently competed in the Iowa State Meet held in Des Moines. Participants must qualify for that State Meet at one of the other meets hosted throughout the season.

Krambeer started gymnastics when she was just three years old. She has been competing in the USA Gymnastics Junior Olympic program since she was seven years old and has qualified for every State Meet since she began her competition in that Junior Olympic program at the age of seven. She is a member of the Dolphin Gymnastics Team in Decorah, and in addition to gymnastics, she is also involved in basketball and softball.

The 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is now officially over, with Villanova winning this year’s tournament championship. Likewise, the 180 entries in The Standard’s 2018 Basketball Bracket Challenge have also played out to one single champion, that being Jamie Kruse of Waukon.

But, quite the opposite of the NCAA Championship game’s final result, a sizable 79-62 victory for Villanova, Kruse just narrowly edged out three other entries by just a single point to win this year’s Bracket Challenge. Kruse ended up with 136 points to finish just in front of Jim Winters, Marlene Houg and Austin Troendle and their Bracket Challenge totals of 135 points each. Those three finished tied for second place in that order listed above based on their championship game combined point total tie-breaker selections of 140, 146 and 148 points, respectively, with Villanova and Michigan combining for 141 points in Monday’s championship game.

Despite seeing its fourth head coach in the past five seasons, the Waukon girls basketball program took a strong step forward during its 2017-2018 campaign, that step taking the Lady Indians to their best overall season record, 14-7, during that same five-year timeframe under the direction of first-year head Tribal leader Greg Criswell. Further evidence of the positive steps made this season could be found in the Tribe’s Northeast Iowa Conference (NEIC) mark of 9-3 that placed the Indians in a tie for second place in the final NEIC standings and proved to tie their best NEIC record since the Indians’ last State Qualifying season of nearly perfect 2009-2010.

Cassandra Berger, left, and Ashley Fuhrman, right, took the opportunity for this photo (at right) after their respective teams matched up on the lacrosse field Wednesday, March 21 in Dubuque. Berger’s University of Dubuque Spartans defeated Fuhrman’s Clarke University Pride, 16-12, in the non-conference match-up. “Pretty cool to have two people from Waukon playing against each other in a sport that we didn’t play in high school,” Berger said when she submitted the photo. “Especially considering that we played basketball together in high school five years ago.”

The Waukon boys golf team will look to the return of four varsity letterwinners from last season to lead one of its largest overall squads in recent history, as 21 young men have reported for early-season workouts so far this spring. While 21 is a promising number for a program that has been working to see growth in recent seasons, the fact that a majority of those 21 are fi rst-time participants and either sophomores or freshmen has third-year head coach Tharin Benson looking for complements to his quartet of veteran returnees.

“The amount of golfers out this year is a pleasant surprise, it’s great to see all the younger grades go out,” Coach Benson said. “Depth will be a concern. We’re still looking for a couple golfers to fill the rest of the varsity squad. As of now, it’s still up in the air.”

The Waukon girls golf team will be looking to begin building another solid foundation, as just two varsity letterwinners return from a squad that played to a fourthplace finish at the Northeast Iowa Conference Tournament and also advanced to the Regional Finals round of postseason play last spring before having its season brought to a close. On a team of 14 players this season, those two returning veterans will make up half of a group of just four who have ever competed in high school golf before.

“We have a young team with 10 players out for the first time,” Waukon girls golf head coach Kathy McMillan said. “It’s a year of rebuilding with only two returning letterwinners.”

The 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament has gotten off to an historic start, with some head-scratching and eye-popping results that have left the tournament about as “up for grabs” as it ever has been. Likewise, the 180 entries in The Standard’s 2018 Basketball Bracket Challenge are likely feeling that same upheaval after a pair of both number-one (Virginia and Xavier) and number-two (Cincinnati and defending tournament championship North Carolina) seeds in the tournament have already been eliminated after just the first two rounds.

The 2018 Waukon boys track team will benefit from the experience of nine varsity letterwinners returning from last season, with nearly half of those returning with the ultimate experience every high school track and field athlete would like to have from qualifying for the State Meet. Those nine veterans include seven seniors, one junior and one sophomore who will all be looked to for leadership of this season’s squad made up of 56 total members.

A large returning class of 18 varsity veterans will help lead the way for the 2018 Waukon girls track season now getting underway. That returning list of experience for this season’s track Tribe will feature just three seniors and near equal totals of eight juniors and seven sophomores to headline an overall crew of 37 track and field athletes.

Those varsity veterans include just a pair of competitors with the ultimate experience of State Meet qualification, as senior Lauren Elliott and sophomore Alyssa Nesseim return from their first-time competitions at the season grand finale as members of the Indians’ distance medley relay crew that qualified to compete among the Class 2A elite last spring. Seniors Alexz Grampovnik and Laurel Keenan join Elliott as the senior trio leading that returning veteran crew, with this season’s only other senior competitor being foreign exchange student Lia Maffini.

The 2017-2018 Waukon wrestling team battled through a 7-13 season this winter under first-year head coach Mason Berns. That overall record included a mark of 1-5 in Northeast Iowa Conference (NEIC) competition, placing the mat Indians sixth in the final seven-team NEIC standings.