Sports

The Kee girls track team got its 2015 season underway even earlier than originally planned, as the Lady Hawks took part in the Upper Iowa Conference Indoor Meet Monday, March 16 at Luther College in Decorah. That meet had originally been set for March 23 but was rescheduled. No team scores were recorded.
The Lady Hawks are next scheduled to take their efforts outdoors for the first time this season. They will have another week to prepare for that first outdoor event, which is scheduled for Tuesday, March 31 at North Fayette Valley in West Union. They are then slated to compete at the Postville Invitational Thursday, April 7.

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The 2014-2015 Kee girls basketball season proved to be the best in the history of the Hawks’ five-on-five program, and there are plenty of numbers to back up that claim. First and foremost in those numbers is the 21-4 record the Hawks compiled this season, the most wins, by far, of any previous Kee five-on-five girls basketball season, according to head coach Danny Love.
Improving on that previous best single-season record of 13-8 from the 2007-2008 season on the way to advancing to the Class 1A Region 4 championship game and the brink of a State Tournament berth was just one of the many highlights Coach Love has drawn from this past season. But he sees this season as having a much bigger impact than just another entry in the school record books.

Fielding its largest team member numbers in several seasons, the Waukon girls track team looks to broaden its recent season-end success during the 2015 season under first-year head coach Bob Wasson. A total of 17 veterans return with previous varsity letterwinning experience to headline this year’s team of 36 young ladies reporting for early-season duty.
“I feel that we have a very strong core group of runners returning from last year and we have a number of new participants that I feel will be able to make an immediate impact,” Coach Wasson said in regard to the outlook for his first season at the Waukon girls track helm. “I am looking forward to getting on the track and seeing how we compare with other area schools.”

The 2014-2015 Waukon girls basketball team played to a 7-15 season record under first-year head coach Andy Sires. That season mark included a 4-8 result that placed the Lady Indians in fifth place in the final Northeast Iowa Conference team standings.
Half of this season’s Northeast Iowa Conference losses came to teams that were both ranked within this season’s top 10 in their respective classes and made their way to every team’s ultimate destination, as Class 4A Waverly-Shell Rock and Class 3A Crestwood topped this season’s final Northeast Iowa Conference standings and played their way to State Tournament berths. Within those four losses, however, Coach Sires said he saw some of the best basketball his charges played this season.

With some of its largest numbers in both overall team members and returning letterwinners, the Kee girls track team looks to continue to make strides forward during its 2015 season. Coach Chad Winters welcomes 16 girls to this year’s squad, with six of those being varsity letterwinners returning from last season.
“Sixteen girls is a good number for us,” Coach Winters said. “It will allow us to fill more events and have different combinations or relays. All of the girls have been working extremely hard up to this point. The weather is starting to cooperate, so we are able to get outside and get more things done.”
Those half dozen returning letterwinners all come from the same class, as six sophomores make up the entire list of veteran returnees this season. Jordyn Burroughs, Madelyn Gruber, Claudia Mathis, Rachel Richards, Sierra Schobert and Sydney Strong each return with a pretty good mix of experience in a variety of events from sprints to field events.

The 2015 Kee boys track team includes a pleasantly surprising larger number of participants than what third-year coach Nick Mooney was anticipating, as 15 young men have reported for early-season duty. Somewhat alarming, however, is the fact that just one veteran with varsity letterwinning experience returns for the Hawks this season.
“A great surprise is the amount of guys that came out this year, especially the first-year guys,” Coach Mooney said. “I was expecting a team half the size of what we ended up with. (Senior) Marquise Phillips is the only returning letter winner. As a coach, it is tough to provide individual feedback when I am trying to work with multiple athletes at the same time. Grouping the less experienced guys with the more experienced guys is critical for feedback and success.”

The Waukon boys track team will benefit from a good number of 55 young men making up its 2015 roster this spring, including a collection of 13 varsity letterwinners who return with veteran experience. Not only do those returnees bring back veteran experience, but nearly all of those Indian letterwinners also come back with some sort of state-level experience at the highest season-end level of competition.
Among that high-level experience is the 4x800 relay foursome of junior Peyton Hesse and seniors Adam Benzing, Marshall Lyons and Landon Sivesind that qualified for last season’s State Track Meet, along with fellow senior Travis Herman, who did likewise in the long jump. Additionally, juniors Tanner Manning, T.J. Treptau and Isaac Fink, along with sophomores Tyler O’Neill and Hunter Jensen, all bring not only veteran experience but the added value of competing at this past fall’s State Cross Country Meet.

The Waukon boys basketball team put together one of its most successful regular seasons in recent history, posting a 12-9 regular season record before having its 2014-2015 campaign brought to a close. The Tribe’s 12-10 final season record included a mark of 5-7 in Northeast Iowa Conference play that left the Indians in a tie for fourth place with a Crestwood team the Tribe split with during the regular season but that ultimately ended the Indians’ season in the opening round of district play.
“This year, we were able to finish the regular season 12-9, which was the best regular season record that a Waukon team has had since the 2007-2008 season,” Waukon boys basketball coach Jed Hemann said of his team’s highlights this season. “We will have five letterwinners returning for next season and expectations should be even higher for our team.”

The Waukon wrestling program took another step forward during the recently completed 2014-2015 season, as this year’s matmen improved their overall season dual meet record to 7-17, up from just five wins last season. A combination of seasoned veterans and skilled underclassmen helped fuel that latest forward step.
“I would have to say that we, as a team, have made huge strides,” Waukon wrestling coach Matt Pladsen said. ‘We had a lot of underclassmen that finished up with 20 or more wins, which is huge as you look down the road for the years to come. Once again, we had a super group of kids out this year. I think the kids, as well as myself, would tell you they had a lot of fun but yet they came to the room ready to buckle down and push each other to make each other better.”

Waukon wrestling 145-pound senior Adam Benzing (who wrestled to a 36-13 season record and a sixth-place finish in this year’s Class 2A 145-pound State Tournament bracket) tries to turn Brady Keefe (who compiled a 26-10 season record and also earned State Tournament qualification this year) of Stewartville, MN to his back in their match as part of the Iowa-Minnesota Border Battle Friday, March 6 hosted by the Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame at Crestwood High School in Cresco. Benzing scored first on a takedown but allowed Keefe to escape to hold a 2-1 lead after one period, and then allowed Keefe a reversal in the second period to trail by a 3-2 count heading into the third period before he suffered a fall with 34 seconds remaining in that third period.