KSN’s Jim Kobbe joins The Eagle’s Joanna Chadwick and Chris Elliott to discuss the week in high school wrestling and basketball.

by joanna

Longtime coach Les Davis died on Tuesday in Tulsa. He suffered a stroke at a grandson’s wedding on Saturday.

Davis has 316 wins in football, third in state history behind Clifton-Clyde’s Ed Buller and Silver Lake’s C.J. Hamilton.

Below is the text of a story Duane Frazier wrote about him in 2005, shortly before he retired. I also included what I wrote about him when he was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame.

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There were five area winners in the Class 5A tournament Saturday. Andover Central had three in Zac Gentzer (103), Jake Gentzler (125) and Alex Bontz (145).

Ark City’s Trey Dice won at 140 and Kapaun’s Dylan Penka won at 170 pounds. The atmosphere at Hartman Arena for the championship matches were pretty intense, which let me know that the wrestling community really takes its sport seriously.

Check out this video with Andover Central’s three champions.

So this Parade of Champions thing is going on and Andover Central Terry Alley was just announced the Class 5A coach of the year. I think that’s a pretty neat accomplishment.

Alley has three wrestlers in the championship round. Zac Gentzler (103), Jake Gentzler (125) and Alex Bontz (145). (more…)

by joanna

(Check the videos of the area winners)

10 p.m. — Countless times on Saturday at Hartman Arena, there was a display of amazing emotions.

Many times there was an athlete who lost and was devastated. Goddard senior Kaleb Bonilla, following his loss at 112 pounds, just shook his head when I walked over to him shortly afterward. This is a kid who I enjoyed talking to on Friday because he was so talkative. But I understood. It’s not easy to have your goal of two straight titles end.

Then there was the range of emotions shown by Heights coach Mike Church after the Falcons won the team title.

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by joanna
The 6A and 5A sub-state pairings are due to come out today. I will post them here as we get them, and they will run in Sunday’s paper.

Below I have the Dodge City and the Olathe North sub-state tournaments.

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Scoring Update heading into the semifinals

1. Shawnee Heights

2. Lansing

3. Ark City

4. Andover Central

Here are a few of the semifinal area matches:

103: Javier Vieyra S South vs. Parker Howell KMC/ Dalton Dietrich Ark City vs. Zac Gentzler Andover C.

112: Quinton Harrison Newton vs. Kader Kretzer McPherson

119: Tyler Dryden KMS v.s Geof Wright BV SW (more…)

by joanna

9:25 p.m. –
Heights has the lead in the team race with 109.5 points, while Goddard is second at 87, Manhattan third with 72, Derby fourth with 70.

Derby has one in the title match, Goddard has two and Heights has four.

A video with Daniel Deshazer from Heights is below.

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by joanna

State wrestling is today! Are you excited about it? I’m betting if you are reading this post, you are thrilled that today is the start of the 6A, 5A, 4A and 3-2-1A tourneys.

I plan on blogging from 6A today when I get out there this afternoon. Until then, take some time to read the articles we had today on some top area wrestlers.

I wrote about the Gentzler brothers, Zac and Jake, at Andover Central. Chris wrote about Dalton Beard at Goddard, and Matt Browning, who has covered wrestling all year for us, wrote about Augusta’s Nick Collins.

Also check out wrestling notes, some of the wrestlers to watch and returning champs.

by joanna

Heights boys beat East tonight to finish the regular season at 20-0, while the Northwest girls beat Bishop Carroll to finish second in the City League.

Collegiate boys beat Circle to finish tied for the AV-CTL Division IV title.

Where were you tonight? Did you see any good games? Performances?

by joanna

I did an update on Northwest wrestler Nick Ball, who was injured during the City League wrestling meet on Feb. 12. Ball isn’t doing well as originally expected. He still has no mobility in his left arm.

Here’s the link.