Sports

Just four points proved to make the Class 2A State Qualifying Meet hosted by Monticello Thursday, October 22 the end of the 2026 season for all but one member of the Waukon girls cross country team, as the Lady Indians finished in fourth place in a 12-team field that included five teams rated in Class 2A’s top-20. That lone distance Tribe member to extend her season was senior Nora Davis, who ran to an 11th-place result to finish within the required top-15 runners in that race field to earn individual qualification for this year’s Class 2A State Meet.

In a bit of deja vu, the Waukon football team’s 10th consecutive berth in the Class 2A State Play-Offs matched the Indians with a Bellevue team they had also opened up last season’s State Play-Offs with. In further deja vu fashion, the grid Tribe handled those visiting Comets with relative ease in their opening-round match-up once again Friday, October 23, securing seven turnovers and building a 24-0 headstart on the way to a 46-12 victory and advancement to the second round of postseason play for a second consecutive season.

The complete-game efforts that propelled the Kee football team to a 7-1 regular season and a first-round play-off home game as a number-two district seed also launched the Hawks to a place they haven’t been in five years following a 50-32 opening-round win over Riceville Friday, October 23. Battling a Wildcat team which had just two losses on the season to a pair of top-10 rated teams that are still also playing in this year’s play-off scenario, Kee’s grid squad shook off a 16-6 deficit in the early second quarter to more than double-up its Riceville visitors over the game’s remainder, picking off two interceptions on the Wildcats’ final two possessions to both create and seal the 50-32 triumph that gave the Hawks their first play-off win since the 2021 season when Kee’s gridders advanced all the way to the quarterfinal round of play.

Although some of the faces were different, the end result was the same for the Waukon girls cross country team as the distance Lady Indians successfully defended their Upper Iowa Conference (UIC) team championship won in their first-ever time competing in the event last year after a fairly close race this year in which just eight points separated the top three teams, all of which are ranked within the top 15 of Class 2A’s distance elite. North Fayette Valley High School hosted the meet in West Union Friday, October 16, a day later than originally scheduled due to rainy weather, but that delay was worth the wait as all five of the ninth-ranked Indians’ team scorers ran to All-Conference accolades within the top 20 individuals of that 64-runner varsity field to score a team championship total of 56 points, just seven and eight points, respectively ahead of 11th-rated Crestwood and 14th-rated MFL/MarMac.

Indians will now host Bellevue in first-round Class 2A Play-Offs this Friday

It’s not often that a loss can feel like a win, but for the Waukon football team a 32-26 home loss to Crestwood in the final game of the regular season still ended up resulting in a Class 2A District 3 season championship for the Orange & Black, the football Tribe’s first district title since the 2023 season. Friday’s loss forced a three-way tie between the Indians, the Cadets (who suffered their lone district loss to Osage, 20-18, a week earlier), and Osage (who the Indians had beaten, 30-20, in early October) - each of them with a 4-1 record in District 3 play.

The final game of the regular season for the Kee football team was not anticipated to have any impact on the Hawks’ Eight-Player State Play-Off qualification when Kee’s 6-1 grid squad hosted a 1-6 West Central team Friday, October 16. Another strong and consistent overall performance by the football Hawks made further certainty of that lack of impact, as Kee scored in all phases of the game to roll to a 54-0 advantage by the halftime break to keep the Hawk starters out of harm’s way for the second half of the contest and rest them for their first-round play-off match-up to be played in Lansing this Friday, October 23 against Riceville.

“We came out and played really well in the first half,” Kee football coach Chad Winters shared. “With the game in hand, we were able to rest our starters and get some younger kids snaps the entire second half and stay healthy for the play-off game in the process.”

The Allamakee County Conservation Board and the Mississippi Valley Sportsman Club in Lansing will host an Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Hunters Education Online Field Day. The field day will take place Saturday, October 24 at the Mississippi Valley Sportsman Club, located at 1797 Columbus Road, Lansing, from 8-11:30 a.m.  Students should go to the Iowa DNR website to register for the class, under the Hunting & Trapping link and then the Hunter Safety and Education link that can be found at https://www.iowadnr.gov/.

The Hunters Education Online Field Day is open to youth aged 11-17 who have successfully completed the online hunters education course through the Iowa DNR.

The Kee boys and girls cross country teams saw double duty this past week, having all of their runners able to compete in a pair of meets held within a couple nights of one another. The Hawks first competed in the South Winneshiek Invitational Tuesday, October 6 before traveling north of the border to compete in the Lewiston, MN Invitational Thursday, October 8.

Kee’s boys and girls are next slated to compete in the Upper Iowa Conference (UIC) Meet to be hosted by North Fayette Valley in West Union Thursday, October 15. They will then await announcement of their Class 1A State Qualifying Meet destination, with that meet scheduled for Thursday, October 22 at a site to be determined.

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

What was set up to be a battle for second place in the Eight-Player District 4 standings between two teams with a single district loss, turned out to not be much of a battle at all as the Kee football team took full control of that district runner-up spot with a 60-0 domination at Central City Friday, October 9. Despite a lone turnover on the doorstep of something even bigger in their first possession of the ballgame, the football Hawks went on to score on eight of their 10 full possessions of the ballgame, with six of those tallies ranging from 21 to 60 yards in length.

In its only match scheduled for this past week, the Waukon volleyball team traveled to Maynard to take on a West Central team that has yet to win a match in Upper Iowa Conference (UIC) play and sported nearly twice as many losses as wins in its 8-14 season record. The host Blue Devils, however, gave the Indians a much stronger fight than anticipated, battling the net Tribe deep into each set before Waukon ultimately pulled off the match sweep in three sets by scores of 25-20, 25-22 and 25-17.

The Lady Indians utilized a 34-23 advantage in kills, but also gave back more than twice as many points in 20 hitting errors in comparison to just nine miscues for West Central. The Blue Devils posted a 7-3 advantage in blocks and also served up a 9-7 edge in aces, while giving back seven points on missed serves in comparison to just two for the net Tribe.