Sports

The Kee softball team opened its 2015 season in somewhat surprising fashion, falling in its non-conference season opener but then rebounding nicely for an Upper Iowa Conference sweep. That season-opening surprise was a 6-1 loss the Lady Hawks suffered at Class 3A Decorah Wednesday, May 27 in a game postponed from the night before due to rainy weather. The rebound, however, resulted in a road sweep at Edgewood-Colesburg the very next night, Thursday, May 28, by scores of 7-3 and 20-1 in just five innings.
“The loss against Decorah was a hard pill to swallow, but early in the season it is good to learn from the mistakes we make,” Kee softball coach Liz Hill said. “The game against Edgewood-Colesburg was more enjoyable for everyone. We were more relaxed and had fun playing the game.”

The Kee baseball team played to differing extremes of results to open its 2015 season this past week. The Hawks got their new campaign off to a rough start with a road doubleheader sweep suffered at Decorah Wednesday, May 27, 9-1 and 10-0 in five innings, but bounced back in championship fashion with a pair of one-run triumphs in sweeping to a title in its own Shooky Fink Tournament Saturday, May 30. Edging out a pair of Class 3A teams, Kee got by Crestwood, 9-8, before fighting back from a 6-0 championship deficit to pull off a 7-6 defeat of Waukon for the tournament crown.
The baseball Hawks were scheduled to play an Upper Iowa Conference doubleheader at Clayton Ridge Monday, June 1 before closing the week with back-to-back home doubleheaders against Starmont and Waukon Thursday and Friday, June 4 and 5, respectively. Kee will then play just a home doubleheader with South Winneshiek Wednesday, June 10 before playing in the St. Ansgar Tournament Saturday, June 13.

For the second consecutive season, the Waukon baseball team will return a dozen players with varsity letterwinning experience, and this year’s crew will look to improve on last season’s 6-25 overall diamond campaign. Included within that veteran core is a group of seven seniors, most of whom are multi-year letterwinners who would like nothing more than for this to be their best high school baseball season yet.
That list of senior veterans includes Adam Benzing, Sully Bucheit, Michael Howe, Marshall Lyons, Jake Ronan, Landon Sivesind and Brock Waters, and they will be looked to for providing leadership to an equally impressive number of younger players in the Waukon baseball program, as 40 young men in grades eight through 12 have reported for early-season duties. Additional returning letterwinners include juniors Haden Hammel, Peyton Hesse, Will Keenan and Chris Miller, as well as freshman Mitchell Snitker.

by Val Meyer

by Val Meyer

An abundance of familiarity will make up the 2015 Waukon softball program, as 11 varsity letterwinners return from a squad that posted a 7-25 season record in 2014. And even though there will be a change at the head coaching helm of the Indian softball program this season, a familiar face will assume that lead role as well.
Joe O’Neill is not only familiar because he is an area native and 1992 graduate of Waukon High School, but he has also served as assistant varsity softball coach for the past two seasons and was also previously an assistant coach for the program in 1996 before assuming the head coaching role for a year during the 1997 season. A move to Forest City also resulted in a multi-year varsity assistant coaching role with those softball Indians as well.

The Waukon boys track team ended its season where every high school track program dreams of, competing among the state’s elite in the Class 3A field of the Iowa High School State Track Meet at Drake Stadium in Des Moines Thursday through Saturday, May 21-23. Within the four events that qualified for this year’s season grand finale, the Indians performed to placewinnings within the Class 3A top-20 in three of them, just missing that mark in the fourth as well.

The Waukon girls track team brought its 2015 season to a final close at a place that is every team’s goal. The Indians competed one final time this season in four total events that qualified for competition in the Class 3A field of the Iowa High School State Track Meet held at Drake Stadium in Des Moines Thursday through Saturday, May 21-23.
Already proving they belong among the Class 3A elite by earning qualification for the season grand finale, the Indians garnered a trio of top-20 event finishes in those high-end fields. One of those efforts came in record-breaking fashion, as the Tribe’s 4x200 relay team improved upon a record it had already rewritten a couple weeks earlier, lowering that standard another nearly quarter of a second to 1:48.29.

The Waukon girls golf team had its 2015 season brought to a close this past week, playing in what amounted to its final two tournaments of the spring season. The Lady Indians played to a fourth-place team finish in the Northeast Iowa Conference Tournament played on their home course Monday, May 11 before closing out their season with a third-place team finish at their Class 3A Regional First Round Tournament Monday, May 18 at Clermont.

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The Waukon boys golf team got its postseason tournament trail underway at its Class 3A Sectional Golf Tournament at Oneota Golf and Country Club in Decorah Friday, May 15. That postseason trail will extend no further for the Indian linksters, as they finished outside of the top-two team finish required to advance on to the Class 3A District Tournament, finishing in eighth place in the eight-team Sectional field with a team score of 386 strokes.

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