Varsity Kansas - The Blog

by joanna

The most frequently asked question via e-mail and phone the past two weeks? When is all-state softball coming out?

It’s coming. I talked with Olathe East coach Jeff Hulse and all but Class 4A has reported. Some coaches have released the lists already, but he wants to wait until he gets 4A to send it to the media. Feel free to post your class if you have it, but we won’t run it in the paper until we get all the classes.

But take heart, we will run it, we do care about softball, we’ll get it.

by joanna

My weekly installment of summer softball: The Jags and the Twisted Sisters.

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by joanna

Corey Lyon is moving on. The coach of the Independent football and softball teams has taken the head coaching job at Paris (Texas) Junior College.

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by joanna
Summer softball news (my continuing way to keep this blog alive until the fall high school sports season)

Spoke with Chuck Schrader, the Clearwater softball coach who heads up the Kansas Renegade.
The Renegade had three teams last year, a 14-under, 16-under and an 18 gold team. It now has seven teams, including two 18a teams and that 18 gold team.

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by joanna

I’m sure I’ll be accused of keeping a so-called controversy alive or of baiting people. But really, this is about an impressive kid who exchanged a couple e-mails with me.

Any reader of this blog has probably seen the furor over Independent and its baseball and softball teams. Seems there were some issues with the fans at both sites and it wasn’t the best situation.

I recently got an e-mail from Marshall Frey, the recently graduated catcher for the school’s baseball team. He wrote a very intelligent, well-thought out e-mail, and I’m going to share a few parts with you.

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by joanna

Another way that I’d like to keep you all coming back to this blog is by talking about summer sports. I’m getting ready to start a series of features about summer sports that will include a variety of sports. It should be fun. I’m heading out to the Southwest Boys Club tonight to check out some baseball.

I’ll also try to hit 7 on 7 football and summer softball, while Jonathan will be keeping up with baseball and basketball.

Here’s my first post on softball, thanks to Augusta coach Ray Aguirre, who coaches the 18s Kansas Freedom.

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by joanna

Did you see this letter to the editor in Sunday’s paper? It has to do with the 3A softball tournament game that included Wichita Independent.

I was impressed with this letter — that originated as an e-mail to my boss, Kirk Seminoff. It was a nice explanation of why the call was made — don’t we all appreciate that?

But what was disturbing was to think that the actions of a few have so hurt Independent’s rep as a community. To think that this ump felt strongly enough to write an e-mail about them is sad. “They showed poor sportsmanship and disrespect to the umpires and opposing team and coach, during and after the game.” Want to know how much that blog post resonated with people — good or bad? It was one of the top 25 blog posts last week, getting nearly 1,000 hits. I’m pretty sure that’s a high for a varsitykansas.com blog post.

Your thoughts?

by joanna

A couple posters beat me to this discussion on all-league softball. I was absolutely flabbergasted when I saw that Augusta catcher Kayla Sears was not first team all-league in AV-CTL Division III. (this is by no means a rip on the Rose Hill catcher, this is a question/criticism of the coaches who picked the team)

And this is not about Sears being an All-Metro selection and not all-league. It’s about how Sears is not the all-league catcher but is the league’s MVP. I called Augusta coach Ray Aguirre about it yesterday to find out what the heck happened.

Before I get into that, I’m not bothered by certain teams cleaning up in the all-league category. The fact that Augusta had 7 first teamers, that Ark City had eight, I’m not bothered by. Some teams are successful based on a strong team that doesn’t have superstars. Others it’s obvious that their success is because of superstars. It happens. Now, no representation by Valley Center, I’d be concerned about. Were there other players in Division III more deserving than the Augusta kids? I don’t know, feel free to discuss.

I’m actually surprised that so many from one team get represented because what I see happen so often is that other teams in the leagues seem to think like this, “Well, I already voted for two kids from that team, we need to spread this around.” There’s nothing more frustrating for a coach to see than a kid who is a mediocre player be chosen over a stud player simply because there’s too many players from that team already named. At the same time, is it fair that only the most dominant team gets all the selections? This is so subjective.

But back to Sears. I think her being named MVP is a way the coaches tried to rectify the voting and her being left off first team, so in that regard, I give them credit for fixing it, kind of. You see it happen a lot where a kid ends up DH or utility because there was tough competition at the real position so the coaches found a place for them.

I kind of did a similar thing with Heights’ Charlotte White and  Goddard’s Jenny Heerey. Both are known most for their pitching, but both play other positions and play them well. So because pitcher is always a competitive position for all-Metro, you try to get those kids on somewhere else. It’s the same in football. On our all-class teams, there’s only one QB, but there’s multiple quarterbacks who deserve to be on the team. So when they play another position — usually defensive back — you get them on in that way.

I still remember when Kamerion Wimbley was a junior at Northwest in 2000. He was such a jack of all trades that he didn’t have outrageous numbers anywhere that he was only All-City at punter — just to find a spot for him. The next year he was at defensive back and punter.

All-leagues, they are crazy.

by joanna

With Goddard’s loss in the 6A baseball final on Sunday, it officially ended the 2007-08 school year and sports season. Unblievable, huh?

There were a lot of great moments throughout this year, a whole lot of success in the Wichita area in all the sports, whether it was football and basketball or bowling. We compiled a nice wrap-up page in sports with pictures, a list of team champions and some quotes.  

There were so many high moments — Andover Central girls going undefeated and winning the 4A basketball title, Southeast winning the 6A title, Trinity winning the 3A boys title. Andale, Garden Plain and Hutchinson all won in football and Bishop Carroll got to the championship game in 5A football but made a bigger statement in my mind of suspending some key kids for the game because they broke team rules. That says so much about that administration.

There were some down moments, such as West struggling in all sports, Goddard girls losing in the championship game of 6A basketball, the Wichita area only coming away with one title — Andale-Garden Plain softball — outside of track this weekend.

The saddest things were the deaths — Ed Kriwiel, Hanston’s Jerry Slaton, Stan Pulliam.

East’s Arthur Brown committed to Miami and then graduated early to get started. Northwest’s Chris Harper committed to K-State, took it back, committed to Oregon and then graduated early to get started out there as a quarterback. East’s Bryce Brown has committed to Miami, too.

The Wichita area has shown itself to be a hotbed for girls basketball and baseball this past year (not that it’s the first).

So there were a lot of high points and some low points. While Wichita area didn’t come away with as many titles as it would have liked to this weekend, many teams put themselves in the position to win — Goddard baseball, Carroll softball, Kapaun baseball, Andale-Garden Plain baseball and softball, Kapaun soccer, Maize soccer, Independent baseball and softball, Udall softball. That’s impressive

Overall it was a great year.

Now tell me your memories — good and bad.

Writing on deadline can be a tricky deal. If you read my story for today’s paper, I focused on the fourth inning when things went way south for Wichita Independent in last night’s championship game. That’s mostly because, at that point, it was after 9 p.m. and I thought the Panthers would have a very difficult time coming back. And indeed that was the case. However, I failed to capture Independent’s attempt at a comeback. The Panthers are a good team — obviously — and they showed that last night overcoming that brutal fourth inning and chipping away. As coach Jamie Fowler pointed out, they actually had the winning run at the plate in the bottom of the seventh inning. That note — a relatively important one, at that — wasn’t included in my story. My point to this is I hope my story didn’t insinuate the Panthers quit after the fourth inning. That wasn’t the case.

As for softball, I found my new favorite high school coach to cover. Corey Lyon impressed me tremendously this weekend. Obviously he’s a great coach, but he also delivered a lot of great, well-thought out comments in speaking with me after tournament games, even after Independent’s loss in the yesterday’s title game. And I appreciate that. He talked about a lot more than softball and more to what he was really trying to get his girls to take away from their trip to state. He got choked up in speaking with me after the final game yesterday, and I thought that was pretty cool for the young kid with the cool shades and soul-patch goatee, who less than an hour before was ejected for standing up to the umpire on a play he believed could cost his team the championship, to show some emotion afterward — whether it was voluntarily or not. He’s a good guy who his team respects a lot.

Final note: Unfortunately, because of a few ‘bad apples’ the Independent fan base got bad name for itself this weekend in Manhattan. There were three incidents, all directed at umpires, I personally observed that I was stunned to witness. One of which ended when tournament administrators had to physically restrain a man and threaten to call the cops after he rushed the umpires after a game. I’ve covered 3A baseball for three years and there are a lot of great people running and help running the tournament who had some very nasty observations about what they saw from Independent fans. There’s that cliche about how most people form an opinion in the first few seconds after meeting someone. Well that goes for a weekend of state baseball and softball, and those first few seconds — in this case, days — didn’t go too well. Looking at the respective rosters, I’d imagine Independent baseball and softball have a great chance to be back to Manhattan next year. I hope the fans realize they’re in a hole as far as public opinion goes when they get back to Manhattan, and I hope they do everything they can to change that opinion. I talked to a lot of friendly, sportsmanship-minded fans on the Independent side this weekend, and I hope they are the ones that the tournament officials remember after the next trip to state.

Congrats on two great seasons.