Varsity Kansas - The Blog

Hutchinson: The Salt Hawks not only beat Maize 78-14, they held Maize quarterback to 20 passing yards. He had been averaging 226 per game. And now Romero Cotton is back for Hutch? I’d hate to have the Salt Hawks on my schedule.

Goddard: This team just continues to put the smack down on its opponents. Heading into Friday, the Lions were beating teams by an average fo 44.5-7.5. Friday they beat Derby 42-21. Derby quarterback Jake Snodgrass still got his passing yards — 190 — but Goddard held Derby’s ground game to 96 yards.

East: I’ve already covered this in a previous post. But that loss to Kapaun wasn’t pretty.

Mulvane: Is for real, after an overtime win over Rose Hill.

Rose Hill: This team has had a brutal schedule — playing Buhler, Newton, Andale and Mulvane in the season’s first five games. Ugh.

Valley Center: Two wins. Gotta like that.

Independent: Gets that winning record going with a 55-14 win over Chaparral.

– joanna

One of my most unfavorite jobs is to predict games. I just don’t feel comfortable doing it. Yet I was awfully earlier this week when Duane and I picked East to beat Kapaun Mount Carmel tonight.

Uh, well, uh, we were wrong. But don’t tell me you saw this coming!

Kapaun’s offense didn’t do much against East, but it did enough to score. As for East, Kapaun shut the Aces down. Yes, Bryce Brown got his 155. Yes, he scored a touchdown. But Bryce also fumbled five — 5! — times.

Needless to say, he was upset following the game. As for Kapaun, the Crusaders were rightfully thrilled.

 – joanna

I’m sure Heights was feeling a little like a forgotten contender when it lost its season opener in overtime to Bishop Carroll. That loss, as we see now, did take the Falcons out of the City League title race because they only have six league games. League-leading East has seven.

But I would think Thursday’s 10-7 victory over Northwest brings Heights back to the front of people’s minds. Click here for the story. Beating Northwest is a sign of a good team and it did what Carroll was able to do to the Grizzlies — shut down Chris Harper. He had just 27 rushing yards against the Falcons.

Now, am I saying Heights will be East? No. Heights’ defense is outstanding, but if Carroll, the league’s best defense, can’t slow Bryce Brown and company enough, then Heights probably won’t be able to, either. OK, here I ride the fence, though, because Heights does have amazing defensive speed.

But I’m still picking East next week.

As for tonight’s matchups, I pointed out in an earlier post that the scheduled games were a little dull. A reader mentioned Newton-McPherson, which I agree, should be a good game.

Good seeing the comments so far. Keep them coming, people. We’ll try some new things in the future and your interaction is always appreciated.

– Joanna

The Kansas State High School Activities Association released its new classifications for the 2007-08 school year. Click here for those classifications. There’s not a whole lot new locally for this year’s classifications.

But the football classifications, which are for the 2008 and 2009 football seasons, are interesting, particularly because Hutchinson does move down from 6A to 5A as was expected. Hutch, the three-time defending 6A champ, will still be in 6A this year — and probably win it all again — but next year it will take over 5A.

It was also interesting to see that Wichita Trinity will be a 4A school in its first year of 11-man football. Trinity has been a club, 8-man team for the past five years. It won’t be an easy road for Trinity, but at least the Knights now have football.

Now I can’t wait until districts come out — that should be released next week.

— Joanna

Ladies and gentlemen — and readers of this blog — we are open for business on varsitykansas.com.

Duane and I will weigh in on a variety of topics, a variety of sports. Feel free to comment at will and if you have a question or topic, let us know what it is. The idea is this blog will take the place of our question-and-answer forum.

We want this to be interactive, so let’s start with a Name-that-blog. Duane has offered up Out of Bounds, but not High School Confidential.

Let us know what you think.

– Joanna

Northwest’s volleyball team made its statement in the season’s first night of matches by beating Bishop Carroll at Carroll. The Grizzlies hadn’t beaten Carroll, the City League’s top team for decades, since the late 1980s. You know what? I bet some of you reading this weren’t even born then. Oh. My. God. Anyway, Northwest beat Kapaun the second week of the season and then beat Heights on Tuesday night. to finish the first half of the City League schedule unscathed. Click on this for the game story. On October 2, Northwest can truly stake its claim on the title when it plays host to both Kapaun and Carroll. It should be a good night of matches.  – Joanna

Last week was one that was chock full of excellent football games. If you weren’t willing to brave the crowds at Carroll vs. East, then there was Heights vs. Southeast and Great Bend-Kapaun, Andover Central-Wellington, Andale-Rose Hill, Mulvane-Andover, Derby-Maize and Cheney-Garden Plain.

It’s not the case this week. Kapaun vs. East should be OK; if anything it’s a chance to see the Brown brothers. Derby at Goddard is the highlight of the week, and it will be interesting to see if Goddard, which is beating teams by an average of 44.5-7.5, can continue rolling. Rose Hill at Mulvane is fine, if only because it will show if Mulvane’s for real and if Rose Hill is really struggling.

The best game of the week is Northwest (3-1) at Heights (3-1) on Thursday night. In the past 11 seasons, Northwest has won seven times, but in the past three, Heights has won twice, including 28-21 in 2006 and 21-20 in OT in 2004.

 – Joanna

Southeast coach Gary Guzman went for two in overtime on Friday night against Heights. The play never got off and Southeast lost by one.

I applaud Guzman for going for two. The play’s successful and you win and go home. (I love games that finish in regulation — or as soon as possibly can). He showed guts, faith in his team and he uses the momentum his team has snatched by scoring on the pass play.

But I’m such a wuss, I can’t imagine not kicking that point-after.

– Joanna Chadwick

One of the most highly anticipated football games in the area was last Friday’s Bishop Carroll vs. East game. The level of interest for that game extended beyond those two schools, which doesn’t happen too often in Wichita for football.

Basketball, yes. That’s why Southeast vs. East was played at Wichita State’s Koch Arena last season.

But City League athletic director Bill Faflick decided not to move the game from Heights Field (which seats 2,800) to South’s Carpenter Stadium (4,800).

Here’s his reasoning:

“We schedule those games so everyone has an opportunity to play at Carpenter Stadium. If Southeast and East and North and West had their druthers, they’d play all their games at Carpenter.

“It was just a matter of being fair to the kids on the teams at North and West. And they were looking forward to playing there.

“Football is a different situation (from basketball) because there are so few opportunities to play (at Carpenter). It would be fairly easy to move any basketball game because you still have the majority of their games at home.

“Already North and West are on the road. If we can do anything to help them feel that this is their home field, we try really hard to do that.

“It’s just a matter of being fair. The game between North and West was every bit as important for the kids involved, the coaches and the school community involved.”

It certainly would have been fan-friendly to move the game to Carpenter Stadium. About 100 people were turned away when the game sold out. But the district brought in 700 extra seats to Heights (for 3500 seats) and there was standing room available around the track.

While East athletic director Kevin Hartley didn’t have a total number of fans present — as of Monday — he said more than $12,000 in tickets were sold. Faflick said there were probably 4,500 at the game.

This issue does bring up why Wichita doesn’t have another stadium large enough to seat all the fans who want to be at the game. The City League’s only football stadiums are at South, Heights, Northwest and Bishop Carroll (only Carroll plays its games at its field). Kapaun pays beaucoup bucks to play at Wichita State’s Cessna Stadium.

Wichita needs another stadium, one with a nice track and artificial turf. Frankly, South needs artificial turf. But that’s an item for another day.

– Joanna Chadwick