Sports

The Kee girls basketball team played through its busiest week of competition thus far with three games played in five nights, putting two of those games in the win column to suffer its first loss of this young season. That initial defeat came in a close intra-county battle at home with Class 3A Waukon by just a 55-53 final margin Monday, December 9, but the Lady Hawks bounced back with decisive wins in Upper Iowa Conference play for the rest of the week, 64-24 at home over Postville Tuesday, December 10 followed by a 62-29 triumph at West Central Friday, December 13.

The Kee girls were next scheduled to host Clayton Ridge Tuesday, December 17 and Central Elkader Friday, December 20 prior to the holiday break. They will then return to the court in the new year to play at North Fayette Valley Friday, January 3 before playing at MFL/MarMac Tuesday, January 7 and then hosting Decorah and South Winneshiek back-to-back nights, Thursday, January 9 and Friday, January 10.

After starting off this 2024-2025 campaign with a pair of double-digit losses against non-conference foes the week prior, the Waukon boys basketball team balanced out that result with a pair of wins by double-digit totals on back-to-back nights this past week to play to an undefeated week’s worth of competition. The Indians broke free in the final minutes of an otherwise tight ballgame in non-conference action to get their first win of the season, 68-51, at Kee Monday, December 9 before opening up Northeast Iowa Conference play in convincing fashion with a 76-47 home victory over New Hampton Tuesday, December 10.

The past week started out much better for the Waukon girls basketball team than it ended, as the Lady Indians posted back-to-back wins on consecutive nights of play early in the week before having a three-game win streak snapped to end the week. Those wins included a 55-53 win at Class 1A sixth-rated Kee Monday, December 9 followed by a 67-52 home triumph over New Hampton to start Northeast Iowa Conference play Tuesday, December 10, but that victorious trend was brought to a close with a 56-33 loss at home to sixth-rated and undefeated Caledonia, MN Thursday, December 12.

The Lady Indians were next scheduled to play at Decorah Tuesday, December 17 and at Sumner-Fredericksburg Thursday, December 19 to wrap up the pre-holiday portion of their schedule. They will return to the court in the new year with a Friday, January 3 game at Oelwein before playing at Crestwood Friday, January 10.

After the first two weeks of the season without a victory, the Waukon girls basketball team broke that trend during a busy past week of three games played in five nights. The Lady Indians book-ended that full week of competition with their first two victories of this winter’s campaign, posting a 47-30 win at MFL/MarMac Monday, December 2 before pulling off a comeback triumph, 68-67, at Spring Grove, MN Friday, December 5. In between those two wins, the bucket Tribe fell at home to North Fayette Valley Thursday, December 4 by a 47-34 final result.

The Lady Indians were next scheduled for another busy week with three more games, playing at Kee Monday, December 9 before hosting New Hampton Tuesday, December 10 and Caledonia, MN Thursday, December 12. The Waukon girls will then play at Decorah Tuesday, December 17 and at Sumner-Fredericksburg Thursday, December 19 to wrap up the pre-holiday portion of their schedule.

The Waukon boys basketball team got its 2024-2025 season off to a non-conference start this past week, playing a pair of Upper Iowa Conference squads to book-end the week’s worth of play. Both of those ballgames ended up falling shy of the win column for the bucket Tribe, as the Indians first fell at MFL/MarMac Monday, December 2 by a 67-45 final result and then suffered a 56-46 defeat at home to North Fayette Valley Thursday, December 5.

Waukon’s boys were next scheduled to play at Kee Monday, December 9 before hosting New Hampton Tuesday, December 10. A final busy week before the holiday break will include a Tuesday, December 17 contest at Decorah followed by a non-conference road game at Sumner-Fredericksburg Thursday, December 19 and then hosting Charles City Friday, December 20.

The Kee boys basketball team got its 2024-2025 season underway on the opposite ends of many spectrums this past week, playing two games that were split between away and home, non-conference and Upper Iowa Conference (UIC), larger school and smaller school, and ultimately, loss column and win column. The bucket Hawks opened this season falling to one of just three teams to beat them during last season’s historic campaign, suffering a similar but much closer fate in falling at Class 3A Charles City Tuesday, December 3 by a 66-57 final result in overtime. They bounced back in considerable fashion from that first loss with a 70-40 domination at home of UIC foe Turkey Valley Friday, December 6.

The Kee girls basketball team had just one game on its schedule this past week but was able to continue its early-season winning ways with a 39-30 home win over Turkey Valley Friday, December 6. In an early-season match-up between two undefeated Upper Iowa Conference foes, the Lady Hawks used a five-minute silencing of their Trojan guests to start the second half on the way to a 14-4 third quarter eruption that loomed large in Kee’s final margin of victory.

On the shoulders of double-digit scoring leadership by junior Addison Winters and sophomore Rylee Mudderman that outpaced Turkey Valley’s entire team total, the Hawks had their final scoreboard advantage come equally from inside the arc and at the free throw line. Being outgunned a bit by a 9-6 count beyond the three-point line, Kee’s 11-for-15 free throw effort eclipsed the Trojans’ five-for-eight charity result by the same count as the Hawks’ 22-16 interior advantage.

The Kee girls basketball team’s 2024-2025 got off to a strong start, much like the strong start the Lady Hawk defense got off to in three of the game’s four quarters in their Tuesday, November 26 season-opener at South Winneshiek in Upper Iowa Conference play. Holding the host Warriors scoreless for the first three to four minutes in quarters one, three and four, the Kee girls were finally able to pull away for good in the game’s final frame to bring home a 43-28 victory.

The Kee girls were next scheduled to host Turkey Valley Friday, December 6 before doing likewise on back-to-back nights with Waukon, Monday, December 9, and Postville, Tuesday, December 10. The Lady Hawks will then travel to West Central Friday, December 13 before returning home for hostings of Clayton Ridge Tuesday, December 17 and Central Elkader Friday, December 20.

The Waukon boys basketball team will field a good-sized team in participation numbers for this 2024-2025 season, as a combined 23 young men ranging from all four of the high school grade levels have reported for early-season practices at the varsity level. Five of those young men return with varsity letterwinning experience from last season’s squad that posted a 7-15 overall record that included a 4-6 mark that placed the Indians in fourth place in the final Northeast Iowa Conference (NEIC) standings.

A large senior class of eight of the uppermost classmen this season will be headlined by three of those letterwinning returnees in Jaxon Brinkman, Dalton Frick and McKinley Rostvold. An even larger class of 12 juniors will feature the other two experienced veterans coming back this season in Colton O’Neill and Zach Perkins, although Perkins is still recovering from a knee injury suffered during the summer baseball season.

The 2024-2025 Kee boys basketball season is being looked to with great anticipation as the Hawks come off their best season in program history and return five of their six top statistical contributors to that trailblazing effort. Furthering that optimism is even further returning depth in the eight varsity letterwinners coming back from last season that account for exactly half of this winter’s total high school participation numbers and an even greater percentage of the 12 young men who will make up this season’s varsity roster.