Sports

The Waukon girls and boys bowling teams got their 2024-2025 season underway at home, hosting Tripoli Tuesday, November 26. That season-opening date resulted in a split for the two squads, as the Lady Indians recorded a 1939-1851 victory and the Waukon boys ended up on the short end of a 1922-1774 final result.

The Waukon bowling teams are next scheduled to compete at Waverly-Shell Rock Thursday, December 5. The bowling Tribe will then begin its regular Friday afternoon dual meet schedule with road dates at New Hampton Friday, December 13 and at North Fayette Valley Friday, December 20.

For more complete coverage, pick up this week's print edition or subscribe to our e-edition or print edition by clicking here.

The 2024-2025 Waukon girls basketball will benefit from the return of six varsity letterwinners from its 13-9 campaign last season. Those six experienced veterans include the spectrum of grade levels in leading an overall high school squad that includes a total of 23 young ladies from the freshman on up through senior grade levels.

Leading that high school program, in addition to making up half of this season’s returning letterwinning core, is this winter’s trio of seniors in Keira McCormick, Reese McCormick and Bella Moudy. The junior pair of Willa Troendle and Elle Wilkins and sophomore Blythe Bucknell complete that list of veteran returnees from last winter’s hardcourt campaign.

“These girls will provide good leadership for us,” second-year Waukon girls head basketball coach John O’Neill said of his letterwinning returnees. “They have experience from last year and hopefully that will make them more comfortable and confident this year.”

The Waukon girls and boys bowling teams will both be facing similar participation numbers in their respective squads for their 2024-2025 campaigns, as the Lady Indians have eight young ladies reporting for early-season duty and the Indian boys will have nine competitors take to the lanes this winter for a total of 17 bowlers between the two teams being led by a combination of five returning letterwinners. With a large number of freshmen rolling their way into this season, just over half of this season’s girls squad will be returning participants from last winter, while only about one-third of the boys team will be made up of previous bowlers in the program. The teams will be coached by both Kim Shelton and Jesse Peterson in a co-coaching effort for this season.

The Kee football team played its way to a 5-4 season record for its 2024 campaign, qualifying for the Eight-Player State Play-Offs for the second consecutive season as the third-place team in the final District 3 standings behind the two District 3 teams to beat the Hawks, Don Bosco and Riceville. Even though that 5-4 mark is just above average, the teams responsible for those four losses were all well above average in playing to a 30-2 combined record during their regular season schedules, and each won at least one State Play-Off game, including a Gladbrook-Reinbeck team that ended

Kee’s grid campaign in the opening round of those Play-Offs on the way to finishing as this year’s Eight-Player State Runner-Up this past weekend.

The 2024 Waukon football season turned in overall season results not seen by the program in 10 years, but ultimately ended up where every team strives to be for the eighth consecutive season. Playing to its first losing record, 3-6, since the 2014 season that also yielded a 3-6 end result, this year’s grid Tribe also snapped a six-season streak of District Championships for the program, but ultimately qualified for the Class 2A State Play-Offs for the eighth consecutive season and for the 11th time in the past 13 seasons, since joining the Class 2A ranks of district competition.

The Waukon boys cross country team’s Saturday, November 2 participation in the Class 2A State Meet at Lakeside Municipal Golf Course near Fort Dodge was one of exceeding, extending and enhancing. Ranked 11th among Class 2A teams heading into that season grand finale, the distance Tribe exceeded those expectations by running to a seventh-place team finish that extended the Indians’ current streak of five consecutive top-10 State Meet team finishes, while further enhancing the Waukon legacy at that season grand finale with an All-State individual finish among the most elite of its distance colleagues.

Competing for the first time in five seasons as an entire team at the destination where all Iowa high school cross country teams strive to be, the Waukon girls cross country team exceeded the expectations of many in running to a 12th-place team finish at the Class 2A State Cross Country Meet held at Lakeside Municipal Golf Course near Fort Dodge Saturday, November 2. Ranked 13th among this year’s Class 2A distance elite heading into the season grand finale, the young Lady Indian squad without a senior on its State Meet crew finished one spot higher than that ranking, tallying 238 points to finish 12th in that 15-team Class 2A field, with that team total being just three points out of cracking the top-10 in those final team standings.

It’s been a quest five years in the making, and the Waukon girls cross country team made it happen by nearly the narrowest of margins at the Class 2A State Qualifying Meet hosted by Monticello Thursday, October 24. Competing in a 14-team field that featured five teams ranked within the top-20 of all Class 2A squads in the state of Iowa, the 12th-rated Lady Indians were tied even with the 13th-rated Monticello squad hosting the event through four scored runners, with the distance Tribe’s number-five and final scored runner finishing just ahead of the host Panthers’ final two scored runners, helping provide the Indians’ 85 team points that edged out Monticello’s 87 points for the third and final State Meet qualifying team finish.

In a field of 15 teams featuring four rated within the top-15 of Class 2A, at least one of those four was going to have its 2024 season brought to a close at the Class 2A State Qualifying Meet hosted by 15th-rated Monticello Thursday, October 24. Running in the lowest team scoring pack time spread of all four of those teams (1:11.8 between their first and fifth runners), the Waukon cross country boys made sure their string of State Meet qualification would extend to a fifth consecutive year, as the 10th-rated distance Tribe tallied 63 team points to finish in second place behind second-rated Denver and ahead of 12th-rated Tipton, with those host school Panthers missing that final qualification cut by a seven-point margin.

For all but the final 1:19 of its Friday, October 25 first-round State Play-Off match-up at eighth-rated Anamosa, the Waukon football team looked to be on its way to shaking up the Class 2A State Play-Off picture with a rare four-seed upset of a top-seeded team. However, after - literally - running away to a 32-12 halftime lead behind a strong ground game and holding a 40-18 lead as the third quarter neared its halfway point, the 3-5 Indian grid squad watched that upset bid of 7-1 Anamosa erode away to a 28-0 outscoring of the Tribe over the game’s final quarter-and-a-half, including the final dagger that came with 1:19 left to play that gave the host Blue Raiders their first lead of the game that would stand as a 46-40 end to the football Tribe’s 2024 campaign.