Sports

The Kee football team made it the happiest of Homecomings as the Hawks picked up their first win of the season, and in convincing fashion, with a 44-14 Homecoming hurrah over West Central Friday, September 27. An equally effective attack on both sides of the line of scrimmage saw the Hawks find the end zone on all but one of their first seven drives of the game while Kee’s defense proved just as effective in limiting the visiting Blue Devils to just one tally in their first six drives of the ballgame, the Hawks bolting to a 22-0 headstart in the first quarter they would never look back from.

The Hawks will hit the road this Friday, October 4 for a sizable task in facing Eight-Player second-rated Turkey Valley, a team boasting a 5-0 season record and coming off a 48-10 home victory over Central City this past Friday. The highly-regarded Trojans have outscored their opponents by a combined score of 288-75 so far this season.

The Waukon girls cross country team continued its recent achievement of team finishes within the top half of meet fields, the Lady Indians doing so on their home course this time around with a fourth-place finish out of 10 teams - more than half of them ranked - at the Waukon Invitational Tuesday, September 24. The distance Tribe benefited from a pack performance of all five of its scored runners within the meet’s top 31 places in the 159-runner field and finishing within a minute and a half of one another. That large field was the result of both the varsity and junior varsity races being run together due to pending weather concerns, with no junior varsity team scores being recorded.

Although it was a match-up of two teams with equal unbeaten records of 4-0 ranked on each end of some Iowa high school football top-10 rankings, the top-rated Waukon football team’s Friday, September 27 Class 2A District 4 opener at 10th-rated Monticello was anything but equal in a 52-7 Indian victory that was actually delayed in starting for an hour by rainy weather. The match-up also featured the top two passing teams in Class 2A District 4, but the Indians proved to the host Panthers that quantity doesn’t necessarily mean quality, as they used three interceptions, two fumble recoveries and relentless defensive pressure to limit Monticello’s district-leading passing game to considerably less than its 277-yard aerial average per game and a lone late touchdown against Tribe reserves, the Indians tossing three touchdowns on the way to 200 yards of their own through the air.

The final tune-up for the Waukon football team prior to the start of its Class 2A District 4 schedule showed a powerful engine running on all cylinders as the Indians rolled over Class 1A Cascade by a 42-13 final result at home Friday, September 20 in their final non-district game of the regular season. The Cougars that once owned the only win over the grid Tribe’s State Championship team two seasons ago have since fallen on harder times as they’ve dropped to Class 1A, not having enough football participation this season to allow for a freshman game to be played prior to Friday’s varsity game and ultimately not being able to keep up with an Indian attack that bolted to a 36-0 halftime lead and held a 42-0 fourth quarter advantage before allowing two late Cascade scores.

The Waukon boys cross country team competed in another large meet with a unique scoring format when the Indians traveled to Starmont Tuesday, September 17. The team scoring for the meet was recorded both overall in a 22-team format and also further broken down separately for Class 1A schools and Class 2A/Class 3A schools.

Unfortunately, the Indian varsity team did not have enough runners to create a team score in that highest level of competition. The distance Tribe ran just four runners, but had all four of those competitors finish within the top 49 runners in the 157-runner overall varsity boys field and within the top 31 of the 79-runner field of Class 2A/3A competitors.

The Indians were next scheduled to host their own home invitational Tuesday, September 24. The distance Tribe will then have more than a week free from competition before returning to the course Saturday, October 5 at the Crestwood Invitational at Cresco.

The Waukon girls cross country team competed in another large field of teams at the Starmont Invitational Tuesday, September 17, using one of the tightest time spreads among its varsity runners to place in the top third of each of the meet’s unique scoring systems of the overall and Class 2A/3A meet fields.

The Lady Indians finished sixth in the 19-team overall meet field and placed fourth out of 12 teams in the meet’s Class 2A/3A team scoring, with 136 varsity runners competing overall, 76 in the Class 2A/3A race.

The Indians were scheduled to host their own Waukon Invitational Tuesday, September 24. The distance Tribe will then be idle until the Saturday, October 5 Crestwood Invitational.

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The trend of close ballgames simply not falling as desired continued for the Kee football team as the Hawks traveled to Central City for their first road game in Eight-Player District 3 play Friday, September 20 and had a late lead snatched away to suffer a 22-20 defeat. The Hawks actually out-tallied the host Wildcats, 20-19, in the end zone, but a second quarter field goal for Central City loomed large on the final scoreboard, along with a final long touchdown run in the fourth quarter that ripped away what had been a 20-16 Kee edge.

The Hawks will return home this Friday, September 27 for their Homecoming game, hosting West Central of Maynard. The Blue Devils picked up their first win of the season this past Friday, 68-34 at Central Elkader, and have suffered losses of 54-0 to Central City and 78-20 to Rockford in games against opponents the Hawks have also matched up against so far this season.

Although the first quarter didn’t necessarily show it, the Waukon football team continued its early-season undefeated streak in relatively easy fashion in a 38-6 home win over fellow Northeast Iowa Conference (NEIC) squad New Hampton in non-district play Friday, September 13. The Indians didn’t put their first points on the board until their third possession with a minute remaining in the opening quarter, but then couldn’t be kept out of the end zone until their final possession in the fourth quarter.

“Really, it was sort of a matter of getting the kids all in phase,” Waukon football coach Chad Beermann said. “We had some kids who were wrapped too tight, and some who were a little flat. Once the team evened out, our play improved.”

The Waukon girls cross country team competed in one of its busiest weeks of the season, taking part in two of its most unique meets of the year as well. The Indians traveled to Waverly Tuesday, September 10 to take part in the Waverly-Shell Rock Invitational that is uniquely scored in grade format, placing seventh out of 13 teams, and then took part in the large multi-state Luther All-American in Decorah Saturday, September 14, finishing 21st in a field of 27 teams from three different states.

The Indians were scheduled to compete at the Starmont Invitational Tuesday, September 17 and will then prepare to host their own Waukon Invitational the following Tuesday, September 24. Further details of the Indians’ home meet can be found in the shaded box printed elsewhere on this week’s Sports pages in the print edition and e-edition of The Standard.

The Eight-Player District 3 season didn’t get off to the kind of start the Kee football team would have liked, or maybe even anticipated, as the Hawks fell to an undefeated Springville team by a 36-14 final result at home Friday, September 13. The Hawks managed 157 yards of total offense in the ballgame, with every one of those yards coming on the ground as the Kee aerial attack was denied in completing any passes on 17 attempts. On the defensive side of the ball, the Hawks allowed Springville 330 yards of total offense, with nearly 200 of those coming on the ground.

The Hawks will travel to Central City for their first District 3 road game this Friday, September 20. Central City holds a 2-1 mark on the season, opening its District 3 schedule this past Friday with a 54-0 romp at winless West Central in which the Wildcats racked up 332 yards on the ground.