Sports

Even though the start to the start of Class 2A District 4 play for the Waukon football team proved to be somewhat of a challenge, perhaps that start to the grid Tribe’s Friday, September 21 home game against Monticello proved to be just what the grid Tribe needed in ultimately getting its District 4 season off to a successful start with a 40-12 victory. The game’s first exchange of possessions saw the Indians give up a long scoring drive downfield followed by an immediate turnover for an early 6-0 hole that threatened to grow bigger, but the Indians ultimately recovered on both sides of the football to rattle off a 34-0 run over the next two quarters’ time to begin their District 4 campaign with a convincing victory.

Returning to the scene of the only crime in last season’s Class 2A State Championship run, it was the Waukon football team that stole some early possessions and certainly took away the game’s early momentum in rolling to a 40-21 victory at Cascade Friday, September 14. The host Cougars provided the only blemish - a 20-25 road loss - on the Indians’ best-ever season and run to the Class 2A crown last fall, but the champions of the grid Tribe’s Class 2A District 4 last season have dropped to Class 1A this fall and certainly had no answer for a 28-0 Indian headstart that featured capitalization on two of three early turnovers and another balanced grid Tribe attack that led the Indians to a 40-21 victory.

The Waukon volleyball team had just one event on its schedule this past week, its own home invitational tournament Saturday, September 15. Had Spring Grove, MN not been invited to that event, the Tribe netters apparently would have claimed their own tournament crown, as the only two losses the Indians suffered Saturday were both to Spring Grove in straight sets as the Lions, instead, played their way to this season’s tournament championship, defeating the Tribe both in their four-team pool match and again in the semifinals of the tournament’s championship bracket on the way to Spring Grove also defeating MFL/MarMac, 21-8 and 21-13, in the tournament championship game to finish undefeated on the day.

The Kee football team knew it would have its hands full heading into its Friday, September 14 home game with a Central City team that was undefeated, was averaging just under 60 points per game and featured one of the state’s leading rushers in senior Trey Holub with a per carry average of just over 24 yards per carry. Although the football Hawks held Holub nearly a third below his per carry average, he still managed to rack up 139 yards of offense and three touchdowns while getting considerable help from his teammates in finishing right near the Wildcats’ scoring average with a 60-12 Kee defeat.

The Kee volleyball team played through a winless week of competition, remaining in search of its first Upper Iowa Conference win of the season before being swept in a weekend tournament. The Hawks first opened their home volleyball schedule with a loss in four sets to Upper Iowa Conference foe North Fayette Valley Thursday, September 13 and then had three consecutive matches taken away from them in two straight sets each for a relatively short day at the Waukon Tournament Saturday, September 15.

Sporting a 2-13 match record on the season, the volleyball Hawks were next scheduled to play at Central Elkader Tuesday, September 18 before hosting West Central Thursday, September 27. Kee’s netters will then pull double duty with a road date at Clayton Ridge Tuesday, October 2 before playing at home against West Central Thursday, October 4.

The Kee cross country teams had their busiest week of the season, competing in a pair of meets within a couple days of one another. One of those meets was likely the largest the Hawks will compete in during the regular season, the Starmont Invitational Tuesday, September 11, where the Kee girls finished third and the Kee boys placed 20th. The Hawks then took part in the Central Elkader Invitational Thursday, September 13, the Lady Hawks returning to the top of that meet field and the Kee boys finishing fourth.

The Hawks were next scheduled to compete at the Waukon Invitational Tuesday, September 18. Kee will then participate in the Jesup Invitational Tuesday, September 25.

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The Tuesday Night Men’s League at the Waukon Golf and Country Club completed its season with a championship match between the team of Kyle Halverson/Robert Campbell (pictured left to right above) and the team of Dan Headington/Kris Krueger. The Halverson/Campbell team won the final play-off match with a two-hole sudden play-off to become the 2018 Men’s League Champions. Seventeen two-man teams competed in the Tuesday Night Men’s League at the Country Club. The Men’s League has been held each summer at the Country Club since 1977. The season is made up of eight weeks of team matches between three different divisions, including match and medal play. Play-off qualifiers were involved in a five-week play-off. Submitted photo.
 

The Kee cross country teams finally returned to the race course after more than two weeks idle from competition, with the Lady Hawks returning right to the top of their team race and the Hawk boys placing fifth in their first team-scored race of the season at North Fayette Valley Thursday, September 6. The Hawks sat completely idle two weeks ago when the August 28 Oelwein Invitational and August 30 Charles City meet addition were both canceled due to weather, and then had the Tuesday, September 4 Clayton Ridge Invitational also canceled before finally being able to compete at North Fayette Valley.

The Waukon volleyball team got its Northeast Iowa Conference (NEIC) season off to a successful start this past week before playing in a weekend tournament in Cresco. The Indian netters swept Decorah in three sets to open both their NEIC and home season Tuesday, September 4 before winning four of six matches to finish third at the annual Kepros Tournament hosted by Crestwood High School in Cresco Saturday, September 8.

The volleyball Indians will now prepare to host their own home tournament this Saturday, September 15, details of which appear in a shaded box elsewhere on these Sports pages. The Tribe netters will then host Oelwein Tuesday, September 18 and will then host New Hampton Monday, September 24 before traveling to Waverly-Shell Rock Tuesday, September 25.

The Waukon football team continued its early-season non-district schedule against fellow Northeast Iowa Conference teams, traveling to New Hampton Friday, September 7. Although the two squads have waged war in some classic battles with postseason implications in recent years, this latest match-up was anything but that as the Indians rolled to a 46-21 victory over a New Hampton squad they eliminated in last season’s play-off run but whose now 0-3 season record provides evidence that it has obviously not rebounded from last year’s graduation loss as well as the Indians.