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By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Washburn Rural coach Damon Parker knows that his Junior Blues still have postseason battles to come this season in Rural's budding girls wrestling rivalry with Emporia.
But after dropping a 1-point decision to the Spartans in last year’s Centennial League meet and a dual loss to Emporia days earlier, Parker wanted to enjoy Friday’s Centennial League championship.
“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t important to me,’’ Parker said. “I think it’s probably more important to me than it was to the girls because, quite frankly, I don’t like losing. I’m not very good at it, I’m as competitive as they come.’’
Rural’s wrestlers also showed their competitiveness, pulling out a 169-164 win over the Spartans in a battle that was close all day while crowning five league champions.
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By ANDREW GILL
TopSports.news
While Shawnee Heights boys basketball coach Ken Darting was confident going into Friday night's United Kansas Conference matchup with Kansas City-Turner, his focus was on pushing his team to keep getting better.
"We were pretty sure we’d win handily, but I told the guys I want to do things right,'' Darting said. "I want to play against us, not against Turner so that we improve. I think for the most part we did that.''
The scoreboard provided evidence, with the T-Birds rolling to a 66-18 victory as senior Harvey Davis led the way with a game-high 14 points and 8 rebounds.
Darting was especially pleased with his team’s defensive showing. The T-Birds forced 27 turnovers, 15 in the first half. They were able to capitalize on most of them, going into halftime with a 40-7 lead.
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By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Highland Park boys basketball coach Michael Williams isn't quite ready to say his Scots are all the way back after an inconsistent start to the 2020-21 season, but Williams knows that Friday night's 57-54 home overtime win over previously-unbeaten Topeka West was a big step in the right direction.
"Obviously we want wins, we don't want losses, but the biggest thing we want more than anything is to just play Highland Park basketball and just to be ourselves, just to look like ourselves out there on both sides of the ball,'' said Williams, whose Scots improved to 3-3 overall and in the Centennial League.
"I feel like it's coming and all we're looking for is fight.''
CJ Powell
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By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Cair Paravel Latin opened up a huge 48-15 halftime lead and cruised the rest of the way for a 69-32 home boys basketball victory over the Northeast Kansas Saints Thursday night.
Noah Hastert
Cair Paravel, which improved to 5-3 with its second straight win, opened up a 24-10 first-quarter lead and then outscored the Saints 24-5 in the second quarter to put the game away.
Noah Hastert, a 6-foot-6 junior, scored 20 points to lead all scorers in just one half of action, while Carter Brian added 10 points and all 10 Lions that saw action cracked the scoring column.
Jaquale Schumm led Northeast Kansas (4-5) with 14 points and Andrew Mullen added 10 points.
CAIR PARAVEL LATIN BOYS 69, NORTHEAST KANSAS SAINTS 32
NEK Saints 10 5 11 6 — 32
Cair Paravel 24 24 9 12 — 69
Northeast Kansas Saints (4-5) -- Mullen 2 4-7 10, Schumm 6 2-4 14, Longstaff 0 0-0 0, Bainbridge 0 0-1 0, Hinck 0 0-2 0, Mercer 3 0-0 6, Schwensen 1 0-3 2. Totals 12 6-17 32.
Cair Paravel (5-3) -- E. Everhart 2 1-2 5, C. Brian 4 2-4 10, Hastert 9 0-3 20, Clark 3 0-0 6, Fay 3 1-2 8, L. Will 2 0-0 4, Gossard 1 2-4 4, E. Will 2 0-2 4, S. Everhart 3 0-0 6, I. Brian1 0-0 2. Totals 30 6-17 69.
3-point goals -- NEK 1 (Mullen 2), Cair Paravel 3 (Hastert 2, Fay). Total fouls — NEK 17, Cair Paravel 20. Fouled out — Hinck, Mercer.
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By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
With the Washburn men's basketball team coming off its first loss of the season and the Ichabods playing without three injured veterans, Ichabod coach Brett Ballard probably would have settled for any kind of bounce-back win in Thursday's MIAA home contest against Missouri Southern.
Instead, Ballard's No. 8-ranked Ichabods put on a show, tying a school-record with 18 3-pointers on the way to a 99-58 romp past the Lions, WU's largest margin of victory in 84 all-time meetings with Southern.
Tyler Geiman
"I'm proud of our team,'' Ballard said. "We're beat up big-time. We were without basically three starters, who were injured, and our freshman class is out because of COVID tracing, so we had nine healthy bodies and really only two bigs and you're going against the best big guy (Cam Martin) in Division II, so needless to say I was nervous coming into this game.
"But our guys, I loved the fight they showed and the togetherness that they played with and I thought we played obviously really well on both sides of the ball.''
And with the way the Ichabods were shooting the ball Thursday -- 59.4 percent from the field (38 of 64) and 51.4 from 3-point range (18 of 35) -- it was going to be hard for just about any time to beat WU.
Senior point guard Tyler Geiman, who continued his outstanding play with game-highs of 28 points, 10 assists and 7 rebounds, hit Washburn's first 3-pointer 65 seconds into the game and the floodgates opened from there as redshirt freshman Levi Braun and junior Jalen Lewis combined for 11 3s on a combined 11 of 12 shooting from deep.
Braun hit his first six 3-point attempts and was 6 of 7 overall on the way to a career-high 19-point effort, while Lewis hit all five of his attempts from outside the arc and also finished with 19 points on the night.
