Sports

Grid Tribe battles through misfortunes, but high-flying Falcons piece together first-ever State title

Some would say it’s beginner’s luck, as the OABCIG Falcons won the Class 2A State Championship in their first-ever appearance in that season climactic event played Friday, November 22 at the UNI Dome in Cedar Falls.

Some would say it’s a one-man show, as that OABCIG squad was led by the arm and legs of junior quarterback Cooper Dejean, who accounted for 420 of the Falcons’ 455 yards of total offense in the game.

But Waukon football coach Chad Beermann says his team’s 37-12 loss in his third State Championship game appearance at the helm of the Indian grid program was simply an unfortunate bump in the road against a worthy opponent during an otherwise stellar season and successful recent era of Waukon football.

The Waukon girls and boys bowling teams have taken to the alleys in preparation for their 2019-2020 seasons, both of them coming off their best campaigns in their three seasons of existence and also continuing to grow with their largest groups of bowlers yet. The Waukon boys team currently has 22 young men reporting for early season practice, while the girls team currently fields 10 competitors.

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The 2019-2020 Kee girls basketball team will include a mixture of new faces and familiarity, as eight young ladies who put in some varsity time last season return but less than half of those returnees bring back any significant contributions to the Lady Hawks’ 14-6 season record last winter. That same kind of mix will also be found in the coaching ranks for the Kee girls program this season, as former Lady Hawk head coach Ben Wagner returns to that helm this season.

Coach Wagner had previously coached the Kee girls program from 1999-2009 before becoming an assistant coach for the Kee boys program from 2010 through completion of the most recently completed season. Furthering his familiarity with the local hardcourt is the fact that Coach Wagner also played his high school basketball in Lansing, including two years at St. George High School and two at Kee.

The Waukon girls basketball team will be looking to rebuild a bit this season after the graduation loss of a large group of eight seniors who helped guide the Indians to a “final four” finish among Class 3A teams with the bucket Tribe’s first State Tournament qualification in nine seasons. However, that rebuilding will still have a fairly solid foundation upon which to begin reconstruction, as six letterwinners return from last season’s 19-4 campaign.

Among those returning veterans will be three each of seniors and juniors, including First Team All-Conference and Class 3A All-Tournament Team selection Annika Headington, who paced last season’s squad with her 11.6 points and 6.7 rebounds per game averages. Joining Headington within those returning veteran ranks are the senior trio of Alison Sherman, Faith Palmer and Hailey Regan, with fellow juniors Regan Griffith and Margaret Wacker rounding out that returning letterwinning mix.

The Waukon Wellness Center will be holding its Sixth Annual “Turkey Trot” 5K Run/Walk Thanksgiving Day, November 28 at 8:30 a.m., beginning and ending at the Waukon Wellness Center. The Center is located directly across from Waukon High School at 1220 Third Avenue NW in Waukon.

All runners and walkers are welcome to join in this traditional pre-feast workout. The event is being held this year to help fund the new community tennis court project newly constructed across the street from the Wellness Center directly adjacent to the Waukon High School parking lot.

The top-rated and top-seeded Waukon football team has played its way to the Class 2A State Championship game for the third time in the last seven years and the second time in the last three seasons, facing a fourth-seeded OABCIG (Odebolt-Arthur-Battle Creek-Ida Grove) team that will be making its first-ever State Championship appearance in the history of any of the football programs that make up that consolidated program. The Indians come off a 32-14 semifinals win over 11th-seeded Williamsburg and OABCIG defeated third-seeded Algona, 41-32, in a battle of two other undefeated teams. Their championship game will be played this Friday, November 22 at 1 p.m. in the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls.

Indian gridders will try to spell out a second State Championship against OABCIG this Friday

The actors were mainly different and the stage was a bit earlier, but the end result was the same - a standing ovation by the Waukon crowd in attendance as their football Indians posted another play-off victory over Williamsburg, 32-14, in their Class 2A State Semifinals game Saturday, November 16 at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls.

The Kee football team played to a season record of 2-7 during its 2019 campaign, a mark that may not indicate just how competitive the grid Hawks truly were this fall. That overall mark included a 2-5 record in the Hawks’ Eight-Player District 3 schedule that placed Kee sixth in the final eight-team District 3 standings.

More than half of this season’s losses for the Hawks came to teams that qualified for this year’s Eight-Man State Play-Offs, including three from the Hawks’ own District 3. Two of those three fellow district squads played their way into the quarterfinals and District 3 champion Turkey Valley had its best-ever season ended in the semifinals by perennial power and Eight-Player State Championship game qualifier Don Bosco. Kee’s gridders gave half of those State Play-Off qualifiers all they wanted until late in the ballgame.

The Waukon volleyball team played its way to a 10-20 season record during its 2019 campaign, including a 1-5 mark in both the Northeast Iowa Conference (NEIC) dual match season and tournament that placed the net Tribe sixth in the final seven-team standings of each. It was either sweep or be swept on most occasions for the Indians, as all 10 of their match victories came without a single set loss while all but three of their 20 losses came in the reversal of that fortune.

An Oelwein team that won just three sets and no matches this fall was the lone NEIC team the Indians ended up defeating this season, doing so twice to finish ahead of those hapless Huskies in the final league and tournament standings. A total of 13 of this season’s losses came to fellow NEIC squads, including four total losses to Crestwood and a third and season-ending loss to NEIC season champion New Hampton in the opening round of Class 3A regional tournament play.

The Waukon girls basketball program will participate in the Iowa Hall of Pride Scrimmage at Sumner-Fredericksburg High School in Sumner Monday, November 18. A freshman game against the host school will be played at 5 p.m. with junior varsity and varsity games to follow. Admission into the event is one non-perishable food item or a free will donation, all of which will benefit the local food shelf.