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By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Rossville's girls basketball team opened its 2022-2023 season in impressive fashion, rolling to a 58-30 road victory at Atchison.
Rylee Dick had a big night in her first high school game, scoring 24 points with four 3-pointers while Bulldawg junior standout Emma Mitchell added 17 points.
Rossville took command with a 15-4 opening quarter and then hit Atchison with a 27-6 lick in the second quarter to take a big 42-10 lead to the locker room at the half.
The Bulldawgs, who were 11-10 in 2021-2022, cruised the rest of the way, emptying their bench in the second half.
HAYS GIRLS 37, WASHBURN RURAL 33 -- Washburn Rural struggled to get its offense untracked Friday night, with tournament host Hays taking advantage of a big second quarter to upset the top-ranked Junior Blues 37-33 in the semifinals of the Hays Shootout.
Junior Zoe Canfield led the Junior Blues (1-1) with 13 points, including three 3-pointers, but Washburn Rural only had four players crack the scoring column. Senior Brooklyn DeLeye added eight points while sophomores Kate Hinck and Tenly Bunck scored six points apiece.
Hays (2-0) and Rural were deadlocked at 8-8 after the opening quarter, but Hays used a 14-6 second quarter to take a 22-14 halftime lead.
Rural cut its deficit to a point (29-28) by the end of the third quarter, but Hays held off the Junior Blues down the stretch, holding an 8-5 scoring edge over the final eight minutes.
Carly Lang scored 11 points and Molly Martin 10 for Hays, which will play for the championship Saturday. Washburn Rural will play for third place.
BASEHOR-LINWOOD BOYS 58, TOPEKA WEST 52 -- Topeka West was in the hunt for the entire game at Basehor-Linwood, but the Chargers were unable to get over the hunt as the No. 10-ranked (Class 5A) Bobcats prevailed over the No. 9 Chargers, who were making their debut in the United Kansas Conference, by a 58-52 margin.
Basehor-Linwood led 15-7 at the end of the first quarter, but West cut its deficit to 22-21 at the half and the game was tied at 34 entering the fourth quarter.
Washburn University signee Tyson Ruud led Basehor-Linwood with 24 points.
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By ISAAC DEER
TopSports.news
Shawnee Heights looked like a defensive juggernaut in the first half, but the lack of made shots and non-offensive capitalization haunted the T-Birds at the end of a 59-46 loss to United Kansas Conference foe De Soto Friday night at Heights.
Sophomore Jaret Sanchez led Shawnee Heights with 14 points in Friday night's 59-46 season-opening loss to De Soto. [File photo/TSN]
Class 5A No. 7-ranked De Soto was a tough opening draw for the Thunderbirds as De Soto made it to last year’s Class 5A State Championship game, losing to Seaman.
Shawnee Heights coach Ken Darting knew the quality of an opponent that De Soto was coming into Friday night’s season-opening conference matchup.
“When De Soto decided they needed to go get a bucket, they just went and got it, and we don’t have that,” Darting said. “That doesn’t bother me. You are what you are. We came out and just got in them. We held this team to 25 points in the first half tonight when they were the state runner-up last year. But we got 16. You’re not going to beat a state-level team when you only score 16 points in a half. We can’t score.”
Darting also acknowledged that some of his team competed how he wanted it to despite not being pleased with the overall performance.
“We had five or six kids that just broke their rear, and they’re dead tired,” Darting said. “But we had selfishness tonight. We wanted to fight with each other instead of the other team. It was not a good performance, and we must fix that.”
Although the Thunderbird defense was imposing, the Shawnee Heights offense was sluggish. Shawnee Heights could only score six points in the opening quarter, but luckily, the defense held De Soto to 10 points.
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By ISAAC DEER
TopSports.news
Despite the De Soto Lady Wildcats converting 12 3-point shots on Friday night, Shawnee Heights hung tight in a narrow 54-50 United Kansas Conference defeat at home.
Shawnee Heights saw a lot of positives in the season-opening loss but the T-Birds were out-rebounded by a large margin and sent De Soto to the free throw line 30 times although the Wildcats were only able to convert 40 percent of their charity opportunities.
Emari Doby
"It's a learning experience and a process," Shawnee Heights coach Bob Wells said. "I didn't anticipate us sending De Soto to the line 30 times. But I knew after the first few minutes of the game that we had to do some different things on defense. Usually, when a team hits 12 three (point shots), you get beat by 30. They made all of those threes, and we were still in it because we were fighting and scratching."
Heights enior Emari Doby played a big part in why Shawnee Heights played De Soto so closely, racking up 24 points. Doby was 8 of 12 from the free-throw line and was a force to be reckoned with..
"It's always a good thing to get her going," Wells said. "She's great on the offensive end and stepping up on the defensive end as well as other areas."
In the first quarter, Shawnee Heights was in complete control early. The Lady Thunderbirds did a stellar job of crashing De Soto's passing lane and forced the Lady Wildcats to take contested shots on the perimeter.
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By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Particularly with senior standout Aron Davis still on the sidelines after a summer knee injury, the Seaman boys basketball team that took the floor Friday night against Lansing didn't bear much resemblance to the Viking team that won the Class 5A state championship last season, with senior Kaeden Bonner the lone player that played major minutes a year ago.
Senior Kaeden Bonner scored a game-high 15 points as Seaman took a 56-35 win over Lansing in the Vikings' UKC debut Friday night. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
Craig Cox's Seaman Vikings stretched their winning streak to 12 games with Friday's 56-35 win over Lansing. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
But the new-look Vikings got the job done in their season-opener, going wire to wire for a 56-35 home win in Seaman's United Kansas Conference debut while stretching its win streak to 12 games.
"I was really pleased with our defense,'' Seaman coach Craig Cox said. "We recognize that Lansing didn't shoot it as well as they're going to as the season goes on, but we were really good in our help defense and I thought we did a nice job of rebounding.
"It's always good to get a good start and then it will get really tough on Tuesday with Topeka West, knowing that they're going to come over here and be a real challenge.''
Seaman opened the game with 11 straight points, holding Lansing without a point until the 3:18 mark of the opening quarter and without a field goal until the 1:48 mark.
- Details
By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
It's hard to imagine a much better start to the basketball season than Seaman's girls and Viking freshman Maddie Gragg got off to Friday night.
Seaman, playing its first-ever game in the United Kansas Conference, scored the first 14 points of the night and went on to lead by 33 points on the way to a 62-32 home win over Lansing.
Seaman freshman Maddie Gragg scored a game-high 17 points in her high school debut Friday night against Lansing. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
Sophomore Anna Becker had a double-double with 15 points an 10 rebounds in Seaman's 62-32 UKC win over Lansing Friday night. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
Gragg scored a game-high 17 points in her high school debut to lead three Vikings in double figures as Seaman, ranked No. 9 in the Kansas Basketball Coaches Association Class 5A state rankings rolled past No. 3-ranked Lansing.
"I felt good,'' Seaman coach Matt Tinsley said. "We jumped out 14-0 and it's kind of a natural tendency to let up, but they hit us with a run and I wanted to see how we would respond to that. We missed a lot of layups that we normally make but we can maybe attribute that to first-game jitters.
"We just go out and play our game and we're excited to get the season started off with a 'W' and we need to get ready for Tuesday (home against Topeka West) now.''
Gragg, 5-foot-9, scored seven of Seaman's first nine points as the Vikings held the Lions scoreless until the 2:50 mark of the opening quarter.
"She's a gamer and I knew she was kind of under the radar, no longer any more though,'' Tinsley said. "She's played a lot of competitive basketball and she knows how to read and make passes and kind of feed off girls. I thought she did a good job.''
Seaman went on to lead 18-7 at the end of the first period and was in command by a 37-20 margin at the half.
The Vikings then followed that up with a 21-7 third quarter to force a running clock throughout the final eight minutes.
Sophomore Anna Becker added a double-double for Seaman with 15 points and 10 rebounds while junior Taylin Stallbaumer had 12 points, including three 3-pointers.
Seaman played 13 players in the game, with eight players cracking the scoring column.
Senior Skylar Weaver led Lansing with 14 points, including the Lions only two 3-pointers.
SEAMAN GIRLS 62, LANSING 32
Lansing 7 13 7 5 -- 32
Seaman 18 19 21 4 -- 62
Lansing(0-1, 0-1) -- Jaccard 4-7 0-0 8, Linaweaver 1-5 0-1 2, Krause 0-2 1-4 1, Calloway 1-2 0-2 2, Weaver 5-9, 2-6 14, Martynowski 0-0 1-2 1, Koontz 0-1 0-0 0, Anderson 1-2 0-0 2, McNabb 0-0 0-0 0, Wilson 1-1 0-0 2. Totals 13-29 4-15 32.
Seaman (1-0, 1-0) -- Schumann2-6 1-1 5, T. Stallbaumer 3-8 2-4 12, Becker 7-15 0-0 15, Gragg 8-14 1-2 17, Gormley 1-5 0-2 2, Anderson 1-5 0-0 2, Wilhelm 0-2 0-0 0, J. Stallbaumer 2-5 2-2 7, E. Stallbaumer 0-3 0-0 0, Miller 0-3 0-0 0, Moulden 0-0 0-0 0, McLaughlin 1-1 0-0 2, Steiner 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 25-68 7-11 62.
3-point goals -- Lansing 2 (Weaver 2), Seaman 5 (T. Stallbaumer 3, Becker, J. Stallbaumer). Total fouls -- Lansing 11, Seaman 17. Fouled out – none.
