Sports

The Kee girls and boys cross country teams will compete in their Class 1A State Qualifying Meet this Thursday, October 20 hosted by Cascade High School at Fillmore Fairways Golf Course located at 21655 US Hwy. 151, about fi ve miles east of Cascade. The meet begins at 4 p.m. and holds the opportunity to earn qualifi cation for the Class 1A State Meet. The event will feature both Class 1A boys and girls fields from 18 schools in their respective races.

After winning its fifth consecutive Class 2A District 4 undefeated season championship this past Friday, October 14, the Waukon football team will begin its Class 2A State Play-Off journey this Friday, October 21 at home.

The Indians will host fellow Northeast Iowa Conference school New Hampton, beginning at 7 p.m., with the winner advancing on to the second round of State Play-Off action next Friday, October 28.

The Waukon volleyball team brought its regular season to a close this past week with one final dual match and the annual Northeast Iowa Conference Tournament. That final dual match saw the Lady Indians battle Class 1A 13th-rated Dunkerton through a fiveset marathon Monday, October 10 before surrendering the final result by scores of 25-19, 22-25, 25-18, 11-25 and 13-15.

The net Tribe brought its regular season to a complete close with the Northeast Iowa Conference (NEIC) Tournament, which is played in a two-day format in round-robin fashion. After having not won a single match or set during its NEIC regular season dual match schedule, the Indians reversed that fortune a bit at the tournament, winning two of their five matches and claiming another set victory that took them to the brink of a third NEIC match triumph.

The Waukon football team’s Class 2A District 4 train kept rolling non-stop toward Titletown, without any derailments thus far, as the grid Tribe made sure that a single-win Jesup team that provided its toughest District 4 battle last season would not do the same in a Friday, October 7 home game. Despite that train chugging a bit with penalties and turnovers, it picked up steam as the game rolled on to keep the football Indians undefeated in District 4 play with a 50-8 Waukon triumph, bringing the Tribe within one final game of a fifth consecutive undefeated Class 2A District 4 championship.

In its only competition of this past week, the Waukon girls cross country team turned in a number of personal best or season best times to finish in the top half of the nine-team scoring field at the South Winneshiek Invitational Tuesday, October 4. Placing three runners within the top-25 of the 118-runner field that featured both varsity and junior varsity runners all running together in the same race, the distance Tribe scored 96 team points to finish fourth, just five points out of third place.

The Indians were next scheduled to compete at the Northeast Iowa Conference Meet to be hosted by New Hampton Tuesday, October 11 before preparing for its Thursday, October 20 Class 2A State Qualifying Meet. That State Qualifying Meet location is expected to be announced this week and is anticipated to be either Oelwein or Monticello.

The Kee volleyball team remained in search of its first win in Upper Iowa Conference (UIC) play for its 2022 campaign, coming out on the short end of another pair of UIC bouts played within three days of one another this past week. The Lady Hawk netters first fell at home to West Central in three sets, 7-25, 10-25 and 10-25 Tuesday, October 4 before suffering a similar fate at home against Clayton Ridge Thursday, October 6 by scores of 16-25, 11-25 and 16-25.

The volleyball Hawks were also scheduled this past week to compete in the Riceville Tournament Saturday, October 8. No results for any of the tournament’s matches were reported or recorded by press deadline for this week’s edition of The Standard and will be reported as soon as they are available.

The short-handed second half of the Kee football season continued to show growing pains for the injury-riddled Hawks, as the Midland Eagles traveled to Lansing Friday, October 7 and soared to a 64-0 Kee defeat. With several key players being sidelined by injury, including a couple of their senior veterans, the host Hawks had difficulty keeping pace with a senior-laden Midland squad, especially senior quarterback Caden Ballou, who accounted for more than three-fourths of the visiting Eagles’ offense with his arm and - mostly - his legs.

The Hawks were more than doubled up in the offensive yards category, as Midland racked up a 314-147 advantage in moving the ball forward. Ballou threw for just 23 yards and one touchdown as part of that offensive effort, but also ran 265 yards and seven touchdowns on 14 of his own carries, averaging nearly 19 yards per carry.

The Waukon girls cross country team pulled double duty this past week, doing so with a pair of meets within less than 48 hours of one another. The Lady Indians ran to a 10th-place finish at the Western Dubuque Invitational Thursday, September 29 and followed that up with a fifth-place team finish at the Crestwood Invitational just two days later, Saturday, October 1.

The Indians were next scheduled to compete at the South Winneshiek Invitational Tuesday, October 4. The distance Tribe will then compete in the Northeast Iowa Conference Meet to be hosted by New Hampton Tuesday, October 11 before preparing for its October 20 State Qualifying Meet.

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The Kee volleyball team continued a recent trend of playing two Upper Iowa Conference (UIC) dual matches in the same week, once again splitting that pair between a home and away contest. The Lady Hawks also remained in search of their first win in dual match play, falling in three sets in both those matches this past week. The Kee net squad first fell to North Fayette Valley at home Tuesday, September 27 by scores of 6-25, 18-25 and 8-25 before suffering a similar fate just two days later at Central Elkader by results of 11-25, 10-25 and 23-25 Thursday, September 29.

The Kee football team’s Friday, September 30 game with Edgewood-Colesburg (Ed-Co) turned out to not be the happiest of Homecomings, as the Hawks fell, 58-16, to a Viking squad whose only two losses on the season have come to teams sitting among the top teams in their respective districts. The Hawks were limited to just 145 yards of total offense in the ballgame, while Ed-Co racked up 388 total yards of offense, many of those coming on big scoring plays that included four such tallies of 40 yards or more.

“It was a struggle on both sides of the ball,” Kee football coach Chad Winters said. “We had a tough time sustaining drives against them as we put ourselves in some second- and third-and-long situations. Defensively, we had a couple guys that we struggled containing. That was a concern going into the game and they made us pay a few times where our backside help couldn’t quite get to where they needed to be to help make the play.”