Sports

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.

The Kee cross country team had a full slate of competition scheduled for this past week but was only able to compete in one of two meets, as Mother Nature forced cancellation of the Clayton Ridge Invitational slated for Tuesday, September 10. The meet the Hawks did compete in was their largest of the regular season, as nearly 30 teams took part in the Saturday, September 14 Luther All-American Invitational in Decorah, where the Kee cross country girls finished 20th in that 27-team field that featured squads from three different states and of all sizes and the Hawk boys had just one runner compete in their varsity race.

The Kee boys also took part in that super-sized Luther Invitational field. The Hawks had just one runner competing in the varsity field of 193 runners, junior Chris Wagner running to a 167th-place finish in a time of 20:16.0.

The Waukon girls cross country team got its 2019 season underway at the Oelwein Invitational, competing against some teams considered highly among their respective classes and having mixed results but ultimately finishing fourth as a team in the large, 15-team field at Oelwein. Ranked sixth among Class 2A teams by the Iowa Association of Track Coaches, the Lady Indians finished three points ahead of Class 2A fourth-rated Jesup but also finished behind Class 1A fourth-rated Denver and two teams considered near the bottom of Class 3A’s most highly regarded teams, including an unranked Center Point-Urbana team that surprised all teams by winning the meet.

The Lady Indians were next scheduled to compete at the Wartburg Invitational hosted by Waverly-Shell Rock Tuesday, September 10. They will then take part in the Luther College Invitational Saturday, September 14 in Decorah before competing in the Starmont Invitational Tuesday, September 17.

The Waukon boys cross country team got its 2019 season underway at the Oelwein Invitational Tuesday, September 3. The distance Tribe did not have enough runners to manage a varsity team score at the meet, which was topped by a close battle between fellow Northeast Iowa Conference teams, Decorah and Waverly-Shell Rock.

The Indians were next scheduled to compete at the Wartburg Invitational hosted by Waverly-Shell Rock Tuesday, September 10. They will then take part in the Luther College Invitational Saturday, September 14 in Decorah before competing in the Starmont Invitational Tuesday, September 17.

For more complete coverage, pick up this week's print edition or subscribe to our e-edition by clicking here.

Touted as high as a #1 vs. #3 match-up by some polls, the Class 2A top-rated Waukon football team’s Friday, September 6 non-district match-up at fellow top-10 and fellow Northeast Iowa Conference squad Crestwood proved to live up to all that hype, coming down to the final minutes and final plays before a winner was decided. Although the Indians had built a 20-7 lead by halftime, they had to recover from a third quarter Cadet uprising and then fight off another threat in the game’s closing seconds to secure the 26-21 triumph.

“I was pleased the kids continued to play hard, even when things were not going our way,” Waukon football coach Chad Beermann said. “It shows we have the talent to do great things, once we get out of our own way with fumbles, penalties and mistakes.”

Although opening the season with a loss a week earlier and facing the daunting task of hosting the defending State Runner-Up, the Kee football team showed no fear at all in battling the Rockford Warriors to just a 22-18 loss Friday, September 6. In fact, the grid Hawks won more than three-fourths of that game, bolting to a 12-0 headstart and holding an 18-16 lead early in the fourth quarter before finally giving up the lead and having some final opportunities at an upset bid turned away.

“The kids stepped up to the challenge put in front of them this week,” Kee football coach Chad Winters said. “Rockford is a quality football team that is going to win a lot of games this year. We failed to capitalize a couple different times deep in their territory that would’ve helped create a different outcome. Those are the things that we have to clean up if we want to beat quality teams.”