Sports

Coming off back-to-back losses to the top two teams in Eight-Player District 3 - and perhaps two of the higher-end teams in Iowa’s Eight-Player class this season with a combined record of 11-1 for Don Bosco and Riceville, the Kee football team made just its second road trip of this fall’s grid campaign and got back on the winning track in a big way with a 63-6 win against a team on the other end of the success spectrum Friday, October 4. Scoring on all but two of its 10 full possessions in the ballgame, and coming up just one special teams play shy of a shut-out, the Hawks had six different players find the end zone in more of a grinding-out fashion with no scoring plays longer than 22 yards while all but shutting down the offensive effort of a winless West Central team to improve to 4-2 on the season and a 3-2 mark in Eight-Player District 3.

The Kee girls and boys cross country teams pulled double-duty this past week, competing in a pair of meets to the south and to the north of the Hawks’ home area. Kee’s distance dandies first competed in the Jesup Invitational Tuesday, October 1, where the Kee boys finished 14th as a team. The Hawks then traveled north of the border to compete in the Lewiston-Altura Invitational in Minnesota, where the Hawk boys placed 11th as a team. The Kee girls did not have enough runners to compile a team score at either meet.

“The Kee Hawks had a busy week of distance running,” Kee cross country coach Pat Wagner said of his program’s week that included a pair of competitions. “The team used a perfect day on Tuesday to turn in their best performances of the season.”

The Waukon girls cross country team pulled double-duty this past week with a pair of meets within a couple nights of one another, finishing second in both of those events. Ranked seventh in the latest Class 2A team rankings by the Iowa Association of Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches, the Tribe’s distance ladies finished runner-up to Class 3A 15th-rated Decorah at Waukon’s own home invitational Tuesday, September 24 before also claiming second place at the Panther Invitational hosted by Central Springs Thursday, September 26, behind Class 2A fourth-rated Forest City.

The Lady Indians were next scheduled to compete at the Western Dubuque Invitational Thursday, October 3 before running at the South Winneshiek Invitational Tuesday, October 8 at Calmar. They will then prepare for the Northeast Iowa Conference Meet hosted by Decorah at Luther College Tuesday, October 15.

The Waukon boys cross country team hosted its own invitational this past week, welcoming nine other teams that tallied team scores at the meet and created a field of 66 individual varsity runners Tuesday, September 24. Placing three runners within the top-10 individuals - including the individual champion - and all seven of their varsity runners in the meet’s top-20, the Class 2A ninth-rated Indians scored 47 team points but finished second to a Class 3A fifth-rated Decorah squad that dominated half of that top-10 for 32 team points.

The Indians were next scheduled to compete at the Jesup Invitational Tuesday, October 1 before taking part in the Tuesday, October 8 South Winneshiek Invitational in Calmar. They will then prepare for their Northeast Iowa Conference Meet taking place at Luther College in Decorah Tuesday, October 15.

Coming off its first loss of the season, and playing its first road game of this 2024 campaign, the Kee football team was facing another of Eight-Player District 3’s top contending teams when the Hawks traveled to Riceville Friday, September 27. With each team having lost to District 3 front-runner Don Bosco during the two previous football Friday nights, the runner-up position behind the undefeated Dons in the District 3 standings was on the line, but a 12-0 early Kee hill to climb and a final 32 unanswered points by the host Wildcats in the third and fourth quarters turned an otherwise blow-for-blow battle between the two squads into an eventual 65-44 defeat for Kee’s gridders.

Looking to bounce back from a Homecoming loss that opened its Class 2A District 3 schedule a week earlier, the Waukon football team traveled to Cresco Friday, September 27 to take on a Crestwood squad that had picked up its first win of the season the week prior and had played to a winless non-district start to the season against the same three ranked opponents the grid Tribe had gone 1-2 against to start its 2024 campaign. That lone victory for the host Cadets heading into their own Homecoming game this past Friday was a forfeit win over a depleted Oelwein team, but that week off from competition may have very well factored into Crestwood, literally, running away to a 32-16 defeat of the Indians.

The lone event on the Waukon girls cross country team’s schedule this past week proved to be successful for the Lady Indians, as they topped the 16-team overall scoring field at the varsity level of the Starmont Invitational Tuesday, September 17. With the distance Tribe being one of four ranked teams from Class 2A competing at the race, the 14th-ranked Lady Indians edged out sixth-rated Sumner-Fredericksburg by two points for the invitational win, and also left 10th-rated Denver and 18th-rated Union behind as well.

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The Waukon football team’s Friday, September 20 home football game against North Fayette Valley (NFV) proved to not be the happiest of Homecomings for the grid Tribe, as the visiting Tigerhawks jumped out to a 24-0 halftime lead on the way to a 31-14 defeat of the Indians. A game that mapped out fairly closely in yards gained didn’t follow that same trend on the scoreboard, with two turnovers looming large in the game’s final 17-point difference.

The Indians will hit the road for another Class 2A District 3 match-up this week, traveling to Cresco to take on a Crestwood Cadet squad that has a similar 1-3 overall record, getting its first win of the season this past Friday with a forfeit handed to them by a depleted Oelwein squad that is on the Tribe’s schedule next week. Facing a similar non-district schedule as the Indians in the first three games of this season, Crestwood suffered losses to MFL/MarMac, 9-7; to Independence, 41-27; and to Decorah, 28-21.

In a Homecoming match-up between two teams both undefeated and rated within the top 10 of Iowa’s Eight-Player class, it was the visiting fourth-rated Don Bosco squad that made itself feel most at home in handing the ninth-rated Kee football team its first loss of the season, 49-12, Friday, September 20. In somewhat of a reversal of fortune from its first three contests, the grid Hawks committed five turnovers in the ballgame - all of them interceptions, shrugging off the first of those to remain in a close early battle with the Dons but falling prey to four more on the way to 42 unanswered points from late in the first frame through late into the third.

Friday the 13th had little impact on the Kee football team in its Friday, September 13 game played at home against Waterloo Christian, but the Eight-Player ninth-rated Hawks proved to be a nightmare for the Regents, who are playing in just their second year of high school football as a team. Despite coming off a convincing win, 44-24, a week earlier over West Central, Waterloo Christian surrendered six turnovers that included an early “pick-six” for one of five Kee interceptions on the night, while the Hawks also had a couple early scoring drives of just a single play to bolt to a 39-0 first quarter lead on the way to an eventual 57-0 Kee victory.