Sports

Looking to get their 2019 season off to a better start than the year before, the Waukon football team did just that in avenging its only 2018 regular season loss with a 36-7 home win over fellow Northeast Iowa Conference squad Decorah Friday, August 30 in a non-district season opener for both squads.

Graduating just six seniors from its 10-2 Class 2A State semifinals squad last fall, the veteran Indians established themselves early on the way to a 30-0 headstart late in the second quarter over a Viking squad hit three times as hard by graduation after dealing the grid Tribe a 24-20 season-opening loss last fall.

The Waukon volleyball team got its 2019 season underway in victorious fashion, the Indians sweeping the visiting Postville Pirates in three straight sets at home Tuesday, August 27. The net Tribe established the tone early in the match with a 25-3 triumph in set one before holding off a much greater challenge from Postville in the final sets but pulling off the sweep with wins of 25-17 and 25-16 in sets two and three, respectively.

The Indians were next scheduled to host MFL/MarMac Tuesday, September 3, but a schedule conflict has since moved that match to Tuesday, September 17. They are next scheduled to take the court Tuesday, September 10 at Decorah before playing in the Crestwood Tournament Saturday, September 14.

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

The Kee cross country team opened its 2019 season at the Edgewood-Colesburg Invitational Tuesday, August 27. Both the girls and boys teams were missing some of their top-end talent, with the Hawk girls finishing in fourth place and the Hawk boys not having any varsity competitors at the meet but also being rained out of the junior varsity race to not be able to record any results at this first meet of the season.

Recording the only Kee results on the night, the Lady Hawks were limited in having just enough runners, five, to garner a varsity team score. That minimum participation produced a total of 78 team points for the Kee girls, placing fourth overall in the seven-team field, just four points out of third place.

TEAM SCORES
Jesup 48; Starmont 60; Central Elkader 74; KEE 78; Sumner-Fredericksburg 111; North Fayette Valley 129; Dyersville Beckman 184

The Kee football team got its 2019 season underway with a 26-6 loss at Riceville in non-district play Friday, August 30. The Hawks allowed the host Wildcats 343 yards of total offense that included just over 300 yards on the ground, from where all four of Riceville’s touchdowns came from to account for nearly half the Wildcat rushing total. Meanwhile, the Kee gridders were only able to amass 112 yards of total offense, with 109 of those coming through the air.

“Giving up two big plays really swung the game in Riceville’s favor,” Kee football coach Chad Winters explained. “We had a chance to make a tackle and didn’t, allowing them to break out and score on a couple long runs, and there was an ill-advised decision on my part to go for it on fourth down inside our own 30 early in the game.”

The Waukon volleyball team will be looking to continue the momentum created by its best season record in more than half a dozen years, as the Tribe netters posted a 17-18-4 overall mark last fall under first-year head coach Angela Adney. The volleyball Indians will return eight young ladies who each took the varsity floor at one time or another throughout last season, mixing that combination of varsity experience with a small handful of first-time varsity contributors to make up the 2019 Waukon Indian volleyball roster.

The Lady Indians played to a 2-4 record in Northeast Iowa Conference (NEIC) match play within their nearly even overall mark last fall, placing them fifth in the final seven-team standings. Those two regular season NEIC dual match wins included one over neighboring rival Decorah and the other over traditional league power Charles City for the first time in quite a few seasons.

The 2019 Kee High School football roster lists 25 young men taking to the gridiron this season in the freshman through senior classes, with just over half of that list returning as varsity letterwinners from last fall’s 2-7 overall campaign for the Hawks. Those 15 veteran returnees include a distribution of seven seniors and five sophomores, with a smaller junior class returning all of its three members with letterwinning experience this season.

The Kee boys and girls cross country teams will both have some challenges to overcome due to graduation this past spring, but both still have some very strong pieces in place for their 2019 season puzzle. Both squads will have some big shoes to fill from the loss of some high-end senior competitors from last season, but a core group of four returning letterwinners for the Kee girls and three letterwinning veterans for the Kee boys will help bolster each squad’s campaign this fall.

“There are 12 high school runners and one junior high runner currently participating in cross country for Kee High School,” Kee cross country coach Pat Wagner shared. “I am looking forward to a good fall season. Our schedule will get us ready for the postseason. We have clear goals and the people to reach them.”

The 2019 season for the Waukon football team has had some high expectations placed on it, as pre-season polls already have the Indians ranked at the top of Class 2A following last season’s 10-2 overall record, a second consecutive berth in the semifinal round of the Class 2A State Play-Offs and the return of all but six players from that squad. While high expectations may be typical - and likely part of the internal driving force - for a program that has been a State Play-Off qualifier in five of its last seven seasons, including three semifinals appearances that have produce one each of State Championship and State Runner-Up finishes, seventh-year Indian head coach Chad Beermann tempers this year’s expectations that appear on paper with what he says has to be proven on the field.

The Kee baseball team played its way to a 24-9 season record during its 2019 campaign, a mark that included a 10-2 result in Upper Iowa Conference (UIC) play to place the Hawks as this season’s UIC runner-up behind an 11-1 South Winneshiek team that played its way all the way to the Class 1A State Tournament this season. More than half of this season’s losses for the Kee diamond dwellers came from those South Winn Warriors, including both of the Hawks’ UIC losses and four consecutive one-run Kee losses that ultimately culminated in a 3-2 heart-breaker in eight innings that brought the Hawks’ 2019 season to a close in the semifinal round of the Class 1A District Tournament.

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

The 2019 Waukon softball team played to a season record that equaled the most wins recorded since the last time first-year head coach Melissa Ward took the field for the Indians - as a player during her senior season in 2010. Ward helped pitch those 2010 softball Indians to a 20-13 season mark, and this season’s 14 wins with her now at the coaching helm of that same program equals the highest number of wins recorded since that 20-win season, the 2011 Indians also recording 14 regular season wins and the 2012 softball Tribe also riding a regional tournament run to another 14- win season.

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