Sports

The 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship Tournament is down to its final four teams, and half of them seem to have come as a surprise to this year’s entries in The Standard’s Bracket Challenge contest. None of this year’s entries has all four of those remaining teams listed among its winners at this point in the tournament, and just one entry has three of those four teams selected while 40 entries have two of the final four teams.

The Waukon boys basketball team played its way to a season record of 7-15 during this past winter’s campaign, including a 4-6 mark in Northeast Iowa Conference (NEIC) play that placed the bucket Tribe in fourth place in the final NEIC standings. The season started with a pair of those wins over the two NEIC teams the Indians finished in front of in those final standings, with second wins over those same New Hampton and Crestwood teams making up part of a three-game winning streak in mid-January that would prove to be Waukon’s final wins of the regular season.

The remainder of this season’s regular season schedule wrapped up with an eight-game non-winning streak before a split of two Class 2A District Tournament contests brought this winter’s campaign to a close in a deja vu heart-breaking loss at North Fayette Valley for a second consecutive season.

The Waukon girls and boys bowling teams rolled their way to end results on opposite ends of the win-loss spectrum during their 2023-2024 campaigns. The Lady Indians bowled their way to a 7-3 season record, while the Waukon boys played their way to a 3-7 season result.

The Waukon girls’ regular season schedule started and ended with alternating wins and losses, starting with one of each before rattling off four consecutive wins and then wrapping up that schedule alternating two each of wins and losses. This season’s three losses for the Lady Indians each came by just 15 pins or less, with just a margin of 32 pins preventing the Waukon girls from an undefeated dual match schedule.

The 2023-2024 Kee boys basketball season was undeniably the best in program history, as this winter’s Hawks flew higher and farther than ever seen before. The end result was a best-ever 22-3 season record that took the Kee boys basketball program to the brink of its first-ever State Tournament berth, with a number of other record-breaking and historic achievements taking place along the way (see shaded box accompanying this article on this same page), including being ranked for the first time in program history, as they climbed as high as Class 1A’s eighth-ranked squad and stayed within Class 1A’s top-10 for the remainder of the season.

The 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship Tournament has gotten underway, holding its share of upsets and nail-biting finishes in its first two rounds played this past weekend. The Standard’s 2024 Bracket Challenge is also underway, featuring its own close results through those same first two rounds of play.

The Waukon High School gymnasium was filled with family, friends, coaches and administrators Wednesday, March 13 to witness and be part of the commitments made by five of the school’s senior student-athletes to the respective colleges and universities they have chosen to share their athletic talents with while furthering their education. Ranging from the ball diamond, to the court, to the mat and the track and field, three young ladies and a pair of young men each signed letters of commitment to their respective next-level programs during that early Wednesday morning ceremony.
Kaitlyn Krambeer, daughter of Brad and Becky Krambeer, will be playing softball at Luther College in Decorah. “I knew as soon as I stepped on campus that (Luther) was the right place,” Krambeer said. “I really like the team environment, and their coaching staff is awesome. Head coach Renae Hartl is incredible.”

The 2024 Waukon boys track and field team will experience the spectrum of participation perspective this spring. On the high side of that spectrum is the fact that one-fourth of this season’s participants will bring back letterwinning experience from previous seasons, but on the opposite end of that spectrum is the fact that the experienced one-fourth is part of only 44 total participants, the smallest participation numbers veteran head coach Ted Snitker has seen in his tenure - down considerably from his highest participation numbers ever of 71 team members just two seasons ago.

The Waukon girls track and field team will reap the rewards of having 14 young ladies return this spring with varsity letterwinning experience from previous seasons, with more than half of those returning veterans bringing back experience at the highest level of high school competition in the state of Iowa. That veteran crew consists of good representation from each of the three eligible returnable grade levels to headline a squad of 37 young ladies for this spring.

The Kee girls and boys track teams got their competition season underway indoors at the annual Upper Iowa Conference (UIC) Indoor Meet held Friday, March 15 at Luther College in Decorah. The Lady Hawks battled to a third-place team finish in their nine-team field and the Hawk boys finished in sixth place, with each squad recording at least one event victory.

The Kee track and field girls established themselves among the top competitors in the Upper Iowa Conference (UIC) in this season’s early-going by claiming a third-place team finish at the annual UIC Indoor Meet at Luther College. Winning four events and finishing runner-up in two more, the Lady Hawks racked up 78.5 points to finish in third place, just a point and a half behind second-place Central Elkader.

The 2023-2024 Waukon girls wrestling season marked another year of growth for the young program, and that growth came in a variety of ways for the Lady Indians as the team fielded its highest participation numbers so far. It is that growth, in so many aspects, that the coaching staff of Danielle and Wade Bucknell sees as this season’s greatest accomplishment.

“Our greatest accomplishment this year was expanding our team, coaching staff, and having most weight classes filled,” the Bucknell tandem shared. “We added Miles Howe as a coach this season and his knowledge in wrestling and personality really contributed to the positive atmosphere in the wrestling room. Also, in a few short seasons we’ve gone from a majority of weight classes unfilled to only two open weight classes. Our middle school program is really thriving with good numbers, which we are looking forward to continually growing as well.”