Sports

A total of 10 letterwinners return for the Waukon boys track team for its 2023 season, with those veteran returnees coming from all grade eligible grade levels to help headline this spring’s squad of 59 young men reporting for early-season duty. The experience that a trio those veterans brings back with them comes at the ultimate level of competition, the State Track Meet at Drake Stadium in Des Moines.

Four of those returning veterans come from this year’s senior class, including those three State Meet competitors. Nathan O’Neill brings two consecutive years of competing in that season grand finale in individual distance races, and he also joined fellow seniors Nate Keenan and Josh Keenan in competing in the 4x800 at last spring’s State Meet as well. James VanderVelden rounds out that list of senior returning letterwinners.

The 2023 Waukon girls track team will benefit from having more than half of this season’s squad of 26 young ladies reporting for early-season duty returning with letterwinning experience. Furthering that benefit is the fact that 10 of this spring’s returning letterwinners bring back with them at least one year of State Meet experience, and in most all of those cases multiple years of competing at that ultimate level of competition.

All five of this year’s senior competitors bring back letterwinning experience, including Maggie Criswell, Paige Hansmeier, Jayden Knox and Katerina Kovarik as two-year State Meet participants and Bailey Sherman competing in that season grand finale last spring. “I look for the seniors to be the leaders on the team,” Waukon girls track coach Bob Wasson said. “All five of the seniors have run at the State Track Meet, so they know the work that needs to be done to reach that goal.”

Waukon High School senior softball player Kiana Krueger signed a letter of intent Wednesday, March 8 to play softball at Culver-Stockton College located in Canton, MO. Pictured above at that signing event are, left to right, Kris, Zenan, Kiana, Remig and Sarah Krueger. The Indian first baseman and left-handed hitter says she chose Culver-Stockton because of “where it’s located and the campus is really pretty.” She intends to study Biology there on a pre-medical track.

The Waukon boys and girls track teams got their 2023 competition season underway with both teams taking multiple competitors to compete in multiple events at their respective Dickinson Relays indoor track and field competitions hosted at the UNI-Dome on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. No team scores were kept at the meets, but both the Indian girls and boys teams each brought home one top-10  event finish in their respective competitions, with the girls meet taking place Monday, March 6 and the boys competing Tuesday, March 7 in their respective fields that each consisted of more than 100 teams from all school sizes and classes of competition.

Both the Waukon girls and boys track teams are scheduled to compete in the Northeast Iowa Conference Indoor Meet hosted at Luther College Tuesday, March 21. They are both then also slated to compete at the Sumner-Fredericksburg Invitational Tuesday, March 28.

The Kee boys track team will have a majority of this season’s squad returning as letterwinning veterans from previous seasons, as 11 of this spring’s 17 team members bring back veteran experience from the track or field events. All but one this season’s upperclassmen bring back at least one year of varsity track and field experience this spring.

Those varsity veterans include all four of this season’s seniors, Ben Franceschetti, Cota Gavin, Carter Goetzinger and Tom Troendle, and all five members of the junior class, Brendan Croft, Kaleb Drape, Cadan Evanson, Andrew Kolsrud and Jackson Schulte. Two of this spring’s sophomores also earned their first varsity letter last spring, including Jordan Cota and Brendan Jones.

The 2023 Kee girls track team will benefit from half of its team members returning as letterwinners from last year’s squad, with some of that experience being gained at the ultimate level of competition. This season’s squad of 14 young ladies will have three seniors, and two each of juniors and sophomores who come back after consistently competing for the Hawks last season at the varsity level of competition.

The Lady Hawks are slated to get their 2023 campaign underway against their fellow UIC squads in the annual UIC Indoor Meet being hosted at Luther College in Decorah this Friday, March 17. Both the Kee boys and girls will be competing at that indoor meet before the Lady Hawks will then prepare to start their outdoor season at the March 28 Sumner-Fredericksburg Invitational.

The Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame, located in Cresco, will be hosting the 21st annual Border Battle this Friday, March 10. Featuring top senior wrestlers from southeast Minnesota and northeast Iowa in both boys and girls competition, the Border Battle will take place in the Crestwood High School gym at 7 p.m. Tickets are available at the door.

Competing for Team Iowa will be three seniors from this season’s Waukon wrestling squad. Indian 126-pounder Jakob Regan, 182-pounder Cullen Dickson and 195-pounder Corbyn Palmer will take to the mat one final time in their high school careers. Waukon head wrestling coach Mason Berns has also been asked to coach the Iowa squad for this year’s event.

This distinctive Border Battle allows one last look for fans and coaches at the area’s finest senior grapplers in competition. The event is designed to promote the growth of girls and boys wrestling, and supports the Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame.
 

Waukon Park & Recreation “A” League Volleyball Champions - Swat Team 2 ...  Pictured above, Left to right - Front row: Ryan Whalen, Brigid Berns, Brock Berns; Back row: Bethany Stock, Ellie Cooper, Morgan Van Ruler. Submitted photo.
 

The sport of wrestling for girls in Waukon has certainly had its moments in history, dating back as far as 1999 Waukon High School graduate Blair Young competing in the first-ever U.S. Girls Wrestling Association National Tournament. More recently, 2022 Waukon High School graduate Meridian Snitker competed in the first-ever Iowa Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association (IWCOA) Girls State Wrestling Tournament as a freshman in 1999, finishing as a State Runner-Up.

The Kee girls basketball team played through its 2022-2023 campaign to produce an overall record of 5-16 this winter, with all five of those wins coming in Upper Iowa Conference (UIC) play to place the Lady Hawks in sixth place in the final nine-team UIC standings. Those five wins came against four different Upper Iowa Conference teams throughout the season, including a season sweep of Postville by margins of five points or less in both of their match-ups and a pair of late-season victories by just a single basket each over Clayton Ridge and South Winneshiek teams the Kee girls had lost to by double-digit margins earlier in the season.

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