Sports

In a battle of teams both undefeated in Class 2A District 3, the Waukon football team hosted overall undefeated and Class 2A ninth-rated Osage Friday, October 2 for its 2026 Homecoming game. A quick start to the ballgame for the Indians saw all three phases of the game - offense, defense and special teams - contribute to a 16-0 headstart for the grid Tribe just over 30 seconds into the second quarter to help outlast a 20-16 upperhand the Green Devils battled to over the final three quarters of the contest.

“While we have had quite a few injuries that cut into our options, the group we have still gives us a lot of flexibility on offense and defense,” Waukon football head coach Chad Beermann said of his team’s contributions in all phases that contributed to that early headstart. “On special teams, we use a lot of the kids who don’t start on offense or defense, and this is an opportunity for them to shine.”

After putting up 80 points in each of its last two ballgames, the Kee football team only got halfway to that total in its Friday, October 2 home game against Springville but still got all the way to the win column in securing a 40-14 win over the visiting Orioles. A rain-soaked field provided its own challenges for the Hawk offense ranked within the top five in scoring in the entire state of Iowa, but Kee’s grid squad was still able to rack up more than 350 yards of offense and outscore Springville, 22-0, over the game’s final 15 minutes, under the toughest field conditions of the night, to come away with that 40-14 triumph that keeps the Hawks among Eight-Player District 4’s leading teams and locks them into play-off qualification.

The Waukon volleyball team had one date each of both dual match and tournament play on its schedule this past week, beating all but one of the five teams the Indian net squad matched up against this past week but actually falling to that one team twice in the same tournament. The volleyball Tribe opened the week with a three-set sweep of Clayton Ridge at home in Upper Iowa (UIC) play Tuesday, September 29 before competing in the Oelwein Tournament and winning three of five matches on the day, with both of those match losses coming to former Northeast Iowa Conference foe Charles City in both pool play and the tournament’s championship match to leave the Lady Indians with a 13-6 season record at this point in the season, including a 2-3 mark in UIC play.

The second half of the 2026 Iowa high school football regular season featured the second game on the Waukon football team’s Class 2A District 3 schedule and an opportunity to either gain or lose ground in the district standings for play-off qualification, as the Indian grid squad hosted North Fayette Valley (NFV) Friday, September 25. The two teams each entered the ballgame with 2-2 season records but had ended up in opposite directions in their district-openers a week earlier, with a fairly-balanced Waukon offensive attack helping to continue its successful district trend by scoring on seven of its nine possessions to help jump to a 22-0 headstart that further survived a mid-game TigerHawk uprising on the way to a 56-20 Indian victory.

For the second consecutive game, the Kee football team blasted the scoreboard with its second most points ever scored in an eight-man football game, putting up another 80 points that ranks second only to an 85-20 win at Cedar Valley Christian in 2012. Last week’s other second-best total was racked up in an 80-52 District 4 road win at Central Elkader, and that same winning number shined bright on the home scoreboard to make for the happiest of Homecomings Friday, September 25 with an 80-6 Hawk triumph over a Calamus-Wheatland (C-W) team still in search of its first win this season.

“That was our most complete game of the season,” Kee football head coach Chad Winters praised. “Offensively, we executed at a high level, special teams contributed in a big way with field position and scored on a punt return, and defensively that was the best we have done communicating, attacking, and finishing all season.”

Despite not playing in a weekend tournament, the Waukon volleyball team still had a very busy week on the court this past week, playing a total of four dual matches on three different nights over a period of just four nights total. That flurry of competition yielded a 3-1 match result, as the Lady Indians opened the week winning one match each over Starmont and MFL/MarMac in a triangular hosted by Starmont Monday, September 21 before battling Crestwood at home to another match victory in four sets Tuesday, September 22. The net Tribe wrapped up the week with another Upper Iowa Conference match, suffering its lone loss of the week in another four-set battle Thursday, September 24 at New Hampton, leading to a 9-4 season record at this point in the season, including a 2-2 mark in UIC play.

The Waukon volleyball team played to a nearly undefeated week, securing its first Upper Iowa Conference (UIC) dual match win of this season and actually avenging its only loss of the week later in the same tournament it was suffered in. The net Tribe first swept Central Elkader in UIC dual action on the road Tuesday, September 15 before winning four of five matches at its own Waukon Tournament Saturday, September 19, recovering from a lone pool play loss to MFL/MarMac to defeat those same Bulldogs in the tournament title bout and claim this year’s tournament championship.

The Waukon net squad was next scheduled to play a pair of dual matches recently added to their schedule, taking on both Starmont and MFL/MarMac Monday, September 21 at Starmont before hosting Crestwood Tuesday, September 22 and playing at New Hampton Thursday, September 24. The Lady Indians will then host Clayton Ridge Tuesday, September 29 before playing in the Oelwein Tournament Saturday, October 3.

Ending up playing a rare Thursday night game in order to avoid heavy rain forecasted for its usual Friday game night, the Waukon football team traveled to the home of the other Indians in Class 2A District 3, a winless Forest City team, Thursday, September 17, to open district play for both squads. Even though they avoided any rain that falls from the sky, Waukon’s grid Tribe stormed into Forest City and rained all over the other Indians’ Homecoming for this year by jumping to a 40-0 halftime lead on the way to a 52-6 victory behind a ground game yardage result not seen from a Waukon football team in nearly 20 years.

In its lone competition of this past week, the Waukon girls cross country team competed in a meet loaded with some highly-regarded schools in the smallest two classes of Iowa high school competition at the Bob Scott Memorial Invitational hosted by North Fayette Valley High School in West Union Thursday, September 10. Rated third in Class 2A itself in the latest Iowa Track & Field/Cross Country Coaches Association polls, the distance Tribe ran to a second-place finish in that field of 12 scored teams, scoring 86 team points to finish behind Class 2A eighth-rated Jesup’s 60 team points, and just ahead of Class 2A 10th-rated MFL/MarMac’s 93 team points, with Class 1A fourth-rated Sumner-Fredericksburg rounding out the meet’s top-four teams in the meet’s final team scoring.

The Waukon girls were next scheduled to compete at the Starmont Invitational scheduled for Tuesday, September 15 before preparing for their own home invitational Tuesday, September 22.

After sitting idle from competition for more than a week following a home schedule opener September 1, the Kee volleyball team returned to the court for a busy latter half of this past week with dual match and tournament competition. The Lady Hawks recorded their first Upper Iowa Conference match victory in three seasons with a five-set marathon triumph at home over Clayton Ridge Thursday, September 10, before playing in the annual Kepros Tournament hosted by Crestwood High School in Cresco and coming up short of a match victory in five bouts of round-robin play Saturday, September 12.

The Hawks are next scheduled to host South Winneshiek Tuesday, September 15 before playing in the Waukon Invitational Tournament Saturday, September 19. They will then travel to Central Elkader Tuesday, September 22 before playing at New Hampton Tuesday, September 29.