My View from the Cheap Seats

Panther Football has that "look"!

2011-09-30T04:52:00.000-07:00

        Don’t look now, but there’s something special brewing on the grid iron in Paola, as the Panthers have rolled to four impressive victories to open the season. Unlike the last two seasons, which incidentally saw the Panthers advance to the sub-state championship game, only to lose to eventual state champions, Bishop Miege in 2009 and Louisburg in 2010, the Panthers have not been tripped up in an early season contest, and have come through the first four games not only unscathed, but basically unchallenged.
        Two years ago it was the Eudora Cardinals who came to Paola and stole a victory over a Panther team that was though to be superior. Last year there was a pair of baffling losses to open the season, at home, to Baldwin and DeSoto. Granted, each of those early season losses were erased by play-off wins, and we’ll be the first to admit that, given the Kansas State High School football playoff system, a regular season loss really doesn’t matter.
        No, losing one of those first five games doesn’t hurt you. Unless you hold league championships near and dear to your heart, because, after all, losing a game to a team like Baldwin in the first game of the year, like the Panthers did last year, didn’t stop them from playing a “winner takes all” game against Louisburg in November with a shot at the state championship game on the line.
        Nope, losing a regular season game to Eudora, no matter how disappointing it was two years ago, did not slow the Panthers march to the sub-state championship game against Miege at Panther Stadium.
        Think about it, while undefeated records are nice, losing one of your first six games really doesn’t hurt. Shoot, the Louisburg Wildcats have lost two of their first four, they’re sitting exactly where Paola was last year after four games, and the Panthers rolled all the way to the sub-state championship game against those very Wildcats. Losses early in the year don’t hurt.
        Now, if the Panthers can roll through the next two games unscathed, defeat a Eudora Cardinal team that also owns shut-out victories over Louisburg and DeSoto to match up with Paola’s shut-outs of DeSoto and Ottawa, and then survive the “run and shoot” offense of St. James the next week, then they will be in a good position to have a chance to run the table.
        Getting through those two road games with wins will set Paola up for the Tom-Tom game against Osawatomie in the first game of the district playoffs and they will follow that up with another home game against Spring Hill.
        Then, you know what, that sets up the exact scenario as last year, with the tables turned when Paola travels to Louisburg for the final game of the regular season. If the Wildcats can win out, they will host the Panthers with the district championship on the line with two losses and will be trying to spoil Paola’s unbeaten season at that point.
        But, just like last year, that game won’t knock anyone out of the playoffs, it will just determine who might have the more difficult opponent in the bi-district game three days later.
        For now though, it looks like it could be a special season for the Panthers, I saw a short quote in one of the rankings describing the Panthers as “this years Louisburg”. I would venture to say that the Panthers are on the same track as the Wildcats were last year, but they are not just “this years Louisburg,” they’ve been at this too long, have too good a track record, and have advanced too deep in the playoffs over the past five years or so to be “this year’s anything”.
        The Panthers are on a journey they are accustomed to, they’ve been here before and they know how to handle the situation. But, it’s fun to go along for the ride, there’s something special brewing in P-Town, and we all need to come along for the ride.

It's 4:00 a.m. do you know where you blogger is?

2011-09-23T10:52:00.000-07:00

        It’s 4:00 a.m. do you know where your blog writer is?
        If you answered at home, in bed, dreaming of state championship game coverage, you’d be very, very, wrong!
        I know that I’ve promised to do a better job of posting to “The Cheap Seats”, but I’ve failed miserably . . . well I think I’ll do better, and here’s why.
        A couple of years ago, my wonderful wife, Lisa decided to take a part time job at Price Chopper stocking shelves on Saturday night -- I’m talking Saturday NIGHT -- like 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. It really didn’t get in the way, and it was a few extra bucks coming into the family coffers, and as time went on, that really started to come in handy.
        Well, as time went on, she started working a few other nights, filling in when there was a lot of merchandise, or when one of the regular crew was sick or on vacation. Again, it was a few more bucks and it didn’t interfere with anything, after all it was over night.
        I continued to do all the things I do, work Hauldren Productions, and cover games for the website, life went on. About a year or so ago, the guy that Lisa was working with on Saturday nights (he has a real “job” too) had a shift change and could not work every other Saturday night.
        So, Lisa was there, locked in Price Chopper, by herself, all night long. Now, when you work the night shift, you’re never REALLY there by yourself, there’s people coming and going all night long, cleaning people, other workers, you’re constantly going back and opening the door for at times, Lord knows who.
        Now it wasn’t an ideal situation, but we made it work, and even with my misgivings about Lisa on the shift by herself, we went six months or so under those conditions. Finally, my logical mind got the better of me, and I thought “what the heck, I can do that every other Saturday, how hard can that be?”
        So I mentioned something in passing one day to Barry Queen, and he agreed that Lisa probably shouldn’t be there overnight, and a couple of weeks later, I was hired! That was right before Christmas last year.
        We went through the Christmas rush, then the New Year’s rush, and then those God awful snow storms of last January, when a couple of the crew members, who lived out of town couldn’t make it out of their driveways for several days at a time. It was CRAZY!
        So, my every other Saturday, turned into one to two nights a week, sometimes as many as 30 hours! Then in the middle of the summer, what should happen? One of the guys on the crew up and quit one night . . . it was a Tuesday night, Lisa and I had filled in for him for about a week, because he had pulled a muscle or something like that.
        Well, to make a long story short, by Thursday, I was working FULL TIME! I though, heck, I can do this, I’ll be working Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights. I’ll be starting at 10:00 p.m. -- all the games will be over by then, I can make it work, make some money that I don’t have to try and drum up in business, and still do everything that I have been doing.
        I can tell you this, it is working, but it’s been hard -- you just HAVE to SLEEP sometime!!! And now, the last piece of the puzzle has fallen into place. The other day I was complaining AGAIN that I was having a hard time getting the website caught up, when Lisa -- ever brilliant as she is said “why don’t you take your laptop in and do some of your writing over break?”
        Well duh! Why didn’t I think of that!
        So I did, and I have for the last couple of nights, and I’ve been able to bang out a story or two over each break, and tonight, well, I wrote this little dissertation on what my life’s been like for the last nine months.
        So, it’s now 4:30 a.m., and do you know where your blog writer is? That’s right, he’s sitting in the break room at Price Chopper, pounding at the keyboard, giving you some insight into the life of a guy who at times seems crazy, event to himself.
        Well fans, break time is over, I have to finish up and get home to fix Lisa’s food for the day, then it’s off to sleep for 4-5 hours and up to post my writings from tonight, and since it’s Thursday there’s soccer, volleyball and cross country to cover.
        Then, if I’m lucky, an hour nap, and back to “work” at 9:30 -- it’s a truck night, and Progresso Soup is on sale -- fun, fun, fun!!
        It’s just another day in the life -- but my busy schedule is a good thing for you, check back, my next installment will be something sports related. There’s a lot of good things going on in Paola, Louisburg and Osawatomie, and I’ve got some good things to say about them.
        Until tomorrow -- or the next day -- get some sleep for me, and if you see me at a game, mention you read this, it will make me feel good to know that somebody out there is listening!!!

1973 was a pretty good year too!

2010-11-15T09:47:00.000-08:00

You know, there's been some pretty big games played at Panther Stadium over the years, but this one coming up on Friday has the potential to be one of the biggest of all time. I've said several times that this game has lost a bit of its luster because of the Panthers 0-2 start on the season. Unfortunately, people just don't look at a team that's sporting a 9-3 record in the same light as one that's 12-0, or 11-1.

The fact that the Panthers stand at 9-3 make them no less of an elite team than if they had suffered just the single loss to the Wildcats three weeks ago and stood at a lofty 11-1 when meeting the still unbeaten Wildcats at 12-0.

But still, there's something about a battle of "unbeaten" teams. There's something about two teams playing, late in the season, for all the marbles, with a perfect record on the line. That doesn't happen very often, and it would have been fun three weeks ago to have the opportunity to hype up that game between the Panthers and Wildcats with the same enthusiasm as a game the I had the opportunity to play in many years ago against the Osawatomie Trojans.

That was a game of epic proportions, at least to the guys that strapped it up that Halloween Night in Paola back in 1973. That was a battle of unbeaten teams, the second and fourth ranked teams in Kansas Class 3A at the time, and bitter, bitter rivals in a day when both teams were good, and when there was really something on the line. At that time there were no district playoffs, and the Paola vs Osawatomie contest that year was a "win and you're in" game. No district runner-up status to bail you out, that night, we had to win to play on. Lose and it was get ready for basketball season.

If you will indulge me a bit, I'd like to take you all on a trip down "memory lane" so to speak and re-live that magical 1973 season as we prepare to watch the Panthers and their new rival Louisburg meet in another do or die game on Friday night.

In 1973, we here in Paola High, knew were were good. Unfortunately, the guys that went to Osawatomie High were good too, it was much the same as Paola and Louisburg this year, there were no secrets, we were well aware of their talents, and they of ours, and it was almost like a weekly contest to see who could beat up on their opponent more, to send a message the eight or so miles between the two towns, that "we see what you're doing, now here, top this!" We did a pretty good job of putting some numbers on the board that were difficult to top.

The season opened at home against Garnett (not Anderson County, they were still Garnett High School). They had a pretty good rushing attack, and we were a bit concerned that they might be able to get outside on us. We had a pretty strong up the gut running attack, and a nice late summer rain storm turned the Panther Stadium turf into a slippery track, much like last Friday and the vaunted outside speed running of Garnett was negated. We pitched a shut-out that night, and brought home a 22-0 victory, we stood at 1-0, and down the road the Trojans also won to make them 1-0 too.

Week two brought our first road trip to play at St. Joseph of Shawnee. (If you're wondering who is St. Joseph of Shawnee, well that little Catholic school moved south a few years later and became Aquinas High School!) St. Joe jumped to a 10-0 lead on us in the first half, we knew they were going to be tough to beat, but we came back and held them scoreless in the second half (that fact will be important a bit down the line) and scored two touchdowns of our own to squeak by for a 12-10 win, we were at 2-0, and Oz destroyed somebody that night too, they were 2-0.

It was back to Panther Stadium in week three against another team no one probably remembers, Immaculata. I don't remember much about this game, other than we pitched another shut-out. That was two shut-outs in three games, and gave us an streak of six straight quarters without allowing a point. Immaculata fell by a 16-0 score, were were 3-0 and Osawatomie rolled on with a victory to keep pace at 3-0.

Week four produced a more familiar foe, the Lansing Lions. Not the 5A Lansing Lions of today, it was the same town, but a much smaller school, 3A Lansing, we always found it interesting going up to Lansing to play an looking at the Kansas State Prison on the hill overlooking the football field. This cat fight went to the Panthers that night, as we won that game 30-0. This was another game that I don't recall a lot of details from, but I do remember that I kicked off. Now most teams use their kicker as a safety on coverage, but when you're 6'6" and weight 235 pounds and aren't the fastest boat in the water, that's not a good idea. So I went downfield on coverage, and one of my more fleet footed team mates play the safety valve role. The Lions assigned some little guy the role of cutting me off at the knees about ten yards downfield. Now I'm not the quickest learner sometimes, and it took about three times for this runt to cut me off for me to figure out what to do. So the next time I kicked off, I decided that if he was going to go low, so was I, which was no small feat, but I did, and I hit him HARD. Needless to say, he didn't cut me at the knees again! Anyway, week four came and went, we remained unbeaten, ran our shut out streak to 10 quarters, and kept pace with the Trojans at 4-0.

The next week saw us return to Panther Stadium to host the DeSoto Wildcats. I don't have any great memories of this game, but it was another victory and another shut out. Our defense had allowed just 10 points in five games, and had not been scored on for 14 consecutive quarters, as the Wildcats fell 44-0.

Tonganoxie was our next opponent and our next destination to play. I remember, they had a pretty good team that year, and going on the road was a concern to the coaches and players alike. Tongie had this field (maybe it's the same, I don't know) that sat down in a hallow and you could see it as you drove on the street around the school. I always remember that traveling to Tongie, DeSoto and Lansing for games those years seemed to take forever! I hated those trips, but it wasn't bad when we came home winners. My best memory of this game was that I absolutely killed two kick offs, sending one to the goal line and another sailing completely out of the end zone. The other highlight -- another shut-out victory. The defense was really playing well, we had not allowed a point in 18 quarters, and our offense was rolling. This night the score was 26-0, and for those of you keeping score at home, that moved our record to 6-0, and we had outscored our opponents by an impressive 150-10. Oh yea, that other team to the south won too, they were 6-0 also.

Week seven brought Gardner to town. Again, this was not the big, bad, Bubba Starling led Trailblazers of the current day. No, they were a little more friendly, although no less competitive bunch, without the gleaming new mega school on the west side of town. Gardner as a sleepy little bedroom community at the time out on the edge of the Olathe Naval Air Station. They had some good athletes, but by this time, there was no one in the Pioneer (yes the Pioneer) League that could compete with either Paola or Osawatomie. It was homecoming, and the only outcome that was even in doubt that night was who would be crowned homecoming queen (no kings at that time, just queens). We rolled to a 43-0 lead by the middle of the second quarter, and the starters had long since turned the game over to the JV. Halftime came, junior Patty Conrow (see I told you we did things differently) was crowned queen, and our defense had run its shut out streak to 20 quarters with no end in sight. But then, late in the third quarter, Gardner did the unthinkable, they broke a run which was stopped at our 10 yard line. The first team defense was called on to come off the bench, after quite a bit of inactivity and try and preserve the shut out streak. Three straight draw plays had netted a couple of yards for the Blazers, but on fourth down, we allowed them to score, and lost our shut-out streak at four games, but preserved the victory by a 43-8 score. And yes, Osawatomie won too we both stood at 7-0.

Week eight was another long trip, at least in those days, up to Piper, which, like all those other schools north and west of Overland Park were just little rural high schools at the 3A level. Piper was relatively new to the league, and the Pirates were no match for us, as we jumped out to a substantial half time lead. Much like the Gardner game, we were way ahead and shutting out the Pirates in the third quarter, when another miscue by the JV gave them a first and goal around our 10 yard line. Again the first team defense went into the game, and again they scored on us on fourth down. Other than allowing another seven points, the thing I remember most is the fog. There was a big communication tower outside the field at one end, I can remember that you could see it well at the beginning of the game, but it had all but disappeared by the conclusion. The good news in this game was we were not challenged, putting up 64 points, but the bad news was we gave up seven. That moved our season record to 8-0, we had outscored our opponents 257-25, put up five shut-outs. We had allowed three touchdowns and a field goal all season long, in 32 quarters, we had held our opponents scoreless in 28 of them. Oh yes, Osawatomie had put up as good, or better numbers, we were both undefeated and on a collision course for a Halloween night street fight at Panther Stadium.

Needless to say, week nine did not go well for us as Panthers. The Trojans were everything they were billed as and a bit more. But, even though we lost by a 36-8 score, and then watched as the Trojans went on to win the Kansas Class 3A State Championship a couple of weeks later, I know we put up one heck of a fight. The game atmosphere was electric. I know I've told the story a thousand times about coming to the stadium two hours early to dress and seeing the stands on both sides of the field filled to capacity. The field was lined with fans five, six, seven deep all the way around, there had to be 5,000 to 6,000 people there. It was great. We were in the game at the half, trailing just 14-8, but an early Trojan score made the situation more difficult and two late turnovers by our offense gave Osawatomie two short field scores to make the final margin greater than it probably should have been. Don't get me wrong, the best team won that night, but I truly believe that if we would have won, we would have hoisted the state championship trophy later that November.

Well, there you have it, that was my moment in the sun, at least on the football field. I was named an all league second team player in football, went on to a unanimous choice all league basketball season, including all-state honorable mention. We missed going to state in football, and fell three points short in basketball as we tied to play in our second straight state tournament. I finally got a taste of state competition in the spring as Paul Watson and I qualified for the state golf tournament in Wellington in the spring of 1974.

It was a fun year, I would have liked to of won one more football game and one more basketball game and then seen how the rest of the games would have played out, but that was not in the cards, but it was a season that gave me memories to last a lifetime. Let's hope that the Paola and Louisburg players who will meet on the Panther Stadium field will have as many memories nearly 40 years from now as I do of that season.

Paola vs Louisburg the battle continues!

2010-11-13T09:28:00.000-08:00

Ok, quick show of hands, how many of you, who were at the first meeting of the Paola Panthers and Louisburg Wildcats two weeks ago at Panther Stadium DID NOT think these two teams would be squaring off against one another for the Kansas Class 4A Sub-state Championship next weekend?

Anybody? That’s what I thought, and really, this is the way the season looked like it would play out clear back when two-a-days started in August.

A bit of the luster was taken off the first meeting on October 28 because the Panthers came into the game with a 6-2 record, after inexplicably dropping their first two games of the season to Baldwin and DeSoto. At that time, the talk around the county, and indeed around the eastern part of the state was “What’s wrong with Paola?”

Well, make no mistake, the Panthers showed, over the next nine weeks and ten games, that there was, thank you very much, nothing “wrong” with them at all. As I said in a game story back in week three “the reports of the Panthers demise had been greatly exaggerated” and Paola came back with a vengeance, winning nine of their next ten games and putting a shine back on the rematch that will be eagerly anticipated and talked about this week here in Miami County.

After all, it was the Panthers that needed to shine up their stature, the Wildcats have done everything they were asked to do, including go on the road to Silver Lake and end the Eagles 52 game regular season home winning streak with a 21-3 victory. Yes, the Wildcats have lived up to their billing, and at 11-0 they deserve to be ranked as highly as they are, and will enter the sub-state championship game with Paola as one of only two unbeaten teams remaining in the class this season, along with Buhler which dispatched of Topeka Hayden in another soggy game by a 21-0 score. Which, coincidentally was the same score Louisburg hung on DeSoto in the rain and muck of Wildcat Stadium.

But it is the Panthers, who will join Louisburg, Buhler and the winner of the Ulysses and Holton game this afternoon in Holton as the Kansas State Class 4A “Final Four”. It’s the Panthers who have erased the sting and stigma of losing their first two games, AT HOME, it a fashion which left those who watched scratching their heads in wonder. It’s the Panthers, who have, with that 0-2 start, had to PROVE they belonged, right up to final seconds of the game Friday night against Baldwin.

When the season started, I had a pretty good idea this was the way this season was going to play out. There were just too many signs which pointed to this match up.

Louisburg is wildly talented offensively and defensively, and after going through last season without the services of quarterback Kody Cook, were poised to take it to another level with his return. In addition, the Wildcats are a beast on the defensive side of the ball, Tyler Ewy is one of the best defensive players in the region, if not in the entire state.

The Panthers were loaded too, although it took a couple of weeks to find their identity, and those two lost weeks in September cost Paola some of the recognition through the rest of the state that they so richly deserved. The Panthers figured out in week three that they didn’t need to pass the ball to win football games. They figured out that a potent (and that might be an understatement) running attack with three and sometimes four players capable of breaking long runs every time they touch the ball was just as good as having a balanced passing and running game. And finally, the Panthers rediscovered how to play defense.

Let’s face it, big offenses are nice, but defense wins championships, and the defenses will be the star next Friday night when the Panthers and Wildcats meet to determine which team will play for the State’s ultimate Class 4A prize on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in Salina.

Despite the score (and a Louisburg Herald headline proclaiming a “thrashing of the Panthers -- really Andy Brown, I like you a lot -- but “thrashed”?), the first meeting between these two teams was just about as even as you could get. That game boiled down to one team making the plays to win the game. It’s often cliché in sports, but the first meeting truly came down to four plays. Three outstanding offensive plays from Louisburg’s playmakers, Cook and Griffin, and an ill advised rugby style kick by the Panthers that was blocked it setting up one of those Wildcat touchdowns. Remove a pair of scrambling touchdown tosses, and a 50 yard Garrett Griffin touchdown run through just about every Panther defender on the field, and that game is far from a “thrashing”, no, it was anybody’s game and an outstanding high school football game between two very evenly matched, and really well coached teams.

I expect no less from the rematch next Friday. Who will win is anyone’s guess. I’m too close to both programs to make a prediction, but what I do know is this, I’m going to get to cover the state championship game regardless of the outcome on the field next Friday.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving will find me on the sideline of a deserving participant in the state championship game, and wether I’m wearing black and gold, or purple and white, it will be a fitting end to a fantastic season.

It's a long way to Holton, Kansas

2010-11-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

I know I've said this before, but it bears repeating again, the road to the Kansas Class 4A State Championship runs through Holton, Kansas. In the past few years, it's been the Paola Panthers, or the Louisburg Wildcats hitting that road, and taking on the Wildcats on what could best be described as a "quirky" field on the north side of Holton High School. (Any one who's stood on the visitors side of that field will know exactly what I'm talking about!)

Now, lets get this out in the open, I have nothing against Holton, or Holton High School, quite the contrary, I really like Holton, my mother's side of the family all came from that area, and I still have relatives living in Holton, and heck, what's not to like about a team that's coached by a good K-State Wildcat like Brooks Barta.

No, I like Holton a lot, just not this time of year. Now we on the "Eastern" half of the state (I'm no geography expert, but I'd sure like to know where East turns into West in the eyes of the KHSHAA), have had the good fortune to get to take that trek up 75 highway to Holton, which sets just 36 miles from the Missouri Border (which by the way is closer than Baldwin is to Missouri), and vice versa to tangle with the Wildcats on many occasions.

But not this year, nope, that honor goes to the Ulysses Tigers, out of good old Ulysses, Kansas, location, 38 miles from the Colorado border. Yep, the Tigers get to make a six and a half hour, 375 mile trek from the southwest corner of the state to play at Holton in the northeast corner of the state. Evidently, the Tigers ran out of teams to play out there, because they're certainly getting the money's worth out of this trip!

The good news is the folks from Ulysses will get an extra day to make the trip, since their game will be played tomorrow night, instead of tonight, and more good news, they might just miss the rain, but there could be a hit of snow in the air up there in Holton. Heck, even Buhler has a long trip ahead of them as they get to travel to Topeka to take on the Hayden Wildcats.

It makes the 30 to 40 mile trips that DeSoto and Baldwin have to make look easy (and they are)! But, I guess it just goes to show where the population base of the state lies -- there's just not much out there after you get past Salina.

A couple of more interesting tidbits about the sectional games. If Holton, Hayden, Paola and Louisburg all win their games (and I think there's a good chance they will) then all four of the Class 4A Sub-State teams will have come from two districts, district 5 with Louisburg and Paola and district 9 with Hayden and Holton.

I find this interesting because a the reason the winner and runner-up in each district advances to the playoffs is because of the Hayden/Holton district alignment in the past. Those two school have battled for years in the same district, and many times one would get left out of the playoffs because of the head-to-head district match up. Several years ago they lobbied the KSHSAA and got the the system changed, two teams out of each district qualify and voila, there was the "bi-district" level of playoffs.

Not that this change has hurt the Panthers and Wildcats here in Miami County, because they're running into the same dilemma. Hayden and Holton were moved out of the same district for a few years recently, but are back battling it out again this year. Paola and Louisburg are going to be in the same situation, unless and until one school moves up a class. It could happen, Paola is still right on the border line of the 4A-5A split, and the Louisburg community is growing, but I don't foresee these two escaping their district battles any time soon.

Finally, and I'm no expert, or historian, but I certainly can't remember when one league has filled four of the eight spots in the sectionals like the Frontier League has done this year. With Louisburg (11-0), Baldwin (10-1), Paola (9-3) and DeSoto (8-4) all holding down spots in the eastern sectional games, the Frontier League is guaranteed a spot in the state championship game in two weeks in Salina. Pretty good stuff, and proof that it's not just lip service when coaches in the league say "The Frontier League is a tough league to play in."

The next two weeks will be fun to watch. I'm still predicting a Paola and Louisburg rematch next Friday night, this time it will be for all (or nearly all) the marbles. The other games I have no clue on, I have no idea what Ulysses brings to the table, and I know Buhler is undefeated, but judging from their schedule, weren't really tested prior to defeating Abilene last Saturday night. So, I'm going with history here and saying I think Holton and Hayden will again duke it out next week also.

Heck, all Hayden's done this year is go 10-1, and that loss was a 7-6 loss, on the road to 6A Manhattan (which by the way is undefeated and cruising to a 6A title game berth), and includes a 27-13 district title game win at Holton. Now Holton's been no slouch either, losing just to Hayden, and on the road at 6A Topeka High School in the first week of the season.

So, there you go, it's a long way to Holton, but if you want to get to the state championship football game in Class 4A, you better be prepared to make that trip somewhere down the road.

Panthers are getting stronger!

2010-11-07T12:09:00.000-08:00

They say, “That which doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”

Well actually, the saying was written by German philosopher Fredrich Nietzske and is literally translated as “that which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

But, if you’re looking for something to illustrate this statement, look no further than the Paola Panthers football team over the last ten days.

Rewind to Thursday, October 28, 2010. The Panthers were riding the crest of a six game winning streak, and playing host to the undefeated Louisburg Wildcats in the final game of the regular season, as well as playing for a district championship.

Now the district championship in Kansas Class 4A Football really doesn’t mean much. No, thanks to the “Holton/Hayden” rule of a few years ago, winning the district championship in Kansas football is roughly a kin to a tie in soccer, or kissing your sister, it really doesn’t count for much.

Oh, it’s nice to say you’re a district champion, but all it really gets you is one more game, against a district runner-up, as you embark on the roughest ten days of football for Kansas Classes 4A and below. Because the state activities association, in it’s infinite wisdom, created this extra layer of games, called the “Bi-District” level, which allowed northeast Kansas high school super-powers Topeka-Hayden and Holton High Schools BOTH the opportunity to continue playing since they were more often than not in the same district year after year, winning and losing at the district level just doesn’t have quite the mystique anymore.

Now, don’t get me wrong, if it weren’t for the Hayden/Holton rule, the Panthers would not be playing right now, and we would not be able to bask in the glory of having four, count ‘em, four, Frontier League teams squaring off in two of the Class 4A sectional games this coming Friday night.

But anyway, ten days ago the Panthers had erased the adversity of the first two weeks of the season, and were rolling on in the season, riding a six game win streak and looking to hand the Wildcats their first loss of the season.

Well, it was a good plan, but you know what they (and exactly who are “they” anyway) say about the best laid plans of mice and men? The Wildcats were going to have none of that talk, and stopped the Panthers cold in a 21-3 victory and relegating Paola to the “runner-up” place in the bi-district bracket and a trip to Fort Scott for the opening round of the playoffs just five days later.

This is were the real adversity starts to kick in.

On the Panthers first scoring drive of the game, junior quarterback Seth Kern came to the sidelines with an injured right hand and did not return to the game. Kern not only directs the Panther offense, but is a staple on the defensive side of the ball. In addition, the Panthers have several other player who are “nicked up”. Bumps and bruises are a football players badge of honor this late in the season. But it’s the late season dings, the loss of a key player in the middle of a playoff run, its playing in an unfamiliar position, there’s a bunch of things that can happen to a team this late in the season, and most of them are bad.

That brings me back to my original though, “that which does not kill you, makes you stronger.”

None of the bumps in the road the Panthers have suffered the last ten days have killed them, they have, as was witnessed Saturday night in Independence, made them stronger.

“We didn’t blame anybody, we stuck together, we’re a family, and we just kept working hard,” said Panther senior Dustin Matz when talking about coming back off a tough loss to Louisburg last week. “Our motto is just get better every week and I feel we’ve done that, we’re getting better.”

You bet they’re getting better, the Panthers turned in probably their most impressive defensive performance of the season on Saturday, it started with the Panthers stopping the Bulldogs on four plays at the Panther 19 yard line after a game opening fumble by Paola and ended with the defense stopping the Bulldogs on four plays from their 18 yard line to preserve the shut out victory.

In between those two defensive stands were series after series of bone jarring hits from the Panther defenders in route to holding the state’s leading rusher Bulldog senior Matt Bromley to next to nothing on the ground and keeping an offensive that had averaged 41 points per game coming into the game to a big, fat “0”.

“Getting a shutout was big, especially when you’re talking about a runner the caliber of the Bromley kid for Independence,” said Panthers Head Coach Mike Dumpert. “I think he was the leader in the state last year, and leading the state this year, our kids did an exceptional job on that.”

“We wanted to get this done (shutout), it sends a statement to the other teams, we’re not here to mess around,” said Panther junior linebacker Brandon Goodman. “We’re going to be there to hit you in the mouth every play, that’s what the whole Frontier League plays like, so some of these other teams, when they see us coming and hit them like that, they’re just not ready for it.”

So now the Panthers get a chance to avenge a couple of their three losses on the season. First up is Baldwin, which handed the Panthers a season opening loss, when the rolled into Panther Stadium and gave Paola a heavy dose of their own medicine. The physical nature of the Baldwin game caught the Panthers off guard, I’d like to think it won’t this time around. Then, if they take care of business against Baldwin, and no matter who wins the “Wildcat” war in Louisburg, it will be another re-match with the Panthers facing a team that handed them a loss in the regular season. DeSoto followed up the Baldwin loss for Paola by putting them in a 0-2 hole with a victory in Paola in week two, and, of course, we all know about the loss ten days ago at the hand of Louisburg.

But through all that, through an 0-2 start, a disappointing loss to Louisburg and the loss of a key offensive and defensive component, the Panthers have continued to grow, continued to improve and it’s something that pleases Panther Head Coach Mike Dumpert.

“The offensive growth has been somewhat stymied through injury but defensively we’re getting better,” Dumpert said. “One of the things we preach, and you guys have been around me long enough and heard this enough, we want to get better each week and defensively we are getting better.”

Frankly, my money’s on a Paola vs Louisburg rematch. No disrespect to either Baldwin or DeSoto, but I really feel Paola and Louisburg will be facing off again in two weeks.

I called it right after the first Paola vs Louisburg game ten days ago, and I’m sticking with my gut feeling. And, if that feeling holds true, then the two teams can meet for the second time this year, with something tangible on the line, a shot at a state championship.

Tragedy Overshadows Incredible Game

2010-11-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

As incredible as the score and statistics were for the Trojans and Broncos, we always must remember, it's just a game.

That point was made abundantly clear early Friday morning when we all recieved word that Spring Hill senior Nathan Stiles, who had collapsed on the sideline during the second quarter of the game, had died.

There will be enough speculation about the causes of his passing, so, we will let others write and comment about the pros and cons of sports injuries.

We will simply pass along our heartfelt condolences to the Stiles family, the students and staff at Spring Hill High School, and the entire Spring Hill Community.

We don't cover the Broncos full time, yet, but we spend enought time at Spring Hill with our regular coverage that we feel like we are part of that family, and we can safely say, it hurts when you lose a family member, especially one so young and with so much to live for.

So, please remember, it's just a game, and should always be treated that way.

Louisburg should be proud of Wildcat Volleyball

2010-10-31T22:11:00.000-07:00

   A little over two hours into the most important day of their volleyball lives the Louisburg Wildcat Volleyball team knew their dream season was all but over.
   In a cruel seeding draw, the Wildcats found themselves paired with not one, but two defending state champions, and not just any state champions, no, the Wildcats were up against the St. James Academy Thunder and the Topeka Hayden Wildcats. Those two teams represented the last three state champions, two straight from St. James and the one before that from Hayden, which, not coincidentally featured the Thunder as runner up.
   Heck, all the Thunder did prior to playing in this years Class 4A State tournament was go 39-1. The eventual 5A state champion Bishop Miege Stags were the only team to defeat the Thunder this year, and, in the Thunder's 39 match wins this season, they lost a grand total of FOUR games, four, that's it!
   So, after playing Hayden tough in their first game, eventually falling by a score of 25-20, the Wildcats felt the wrath of Hayden and St. James. Louisburg dropped their second game against Hayden in a game which they really weren't competitive. Then they got steam rolled by the Thunder in the first game of their match, and despite the fact the Wildcats opened a 3-0 lead in the second game of the match against the Thunder, it was little more than a stay of execution, as the Thunder rolled off 10 straight points and went on to a 25-10 victory.
   That's when the Wildcats fortunes in the state tournament changed. Lesser team would have mailed in their third and final match of the pool play, taken a beating and gone home, feeling good about just making it to the state tournament. Especially a team that had not been to such a lofty position in nearly 20 years. But not the Wildcats, not this bunch of kids who found it not good enough to just get to the dance, they wanted to at least make it to the floor.
   "We knew we had to keep our heads in it, we had to focus and come together as a team," said Marisa Mackey, and led by Mackey and the Wildcat seniors, that's exactly what they did. The Wildcats came back even after waiting over three hours to finally hit the court again, and defeated the fourth seeded Labette County Grizzlies in straight sets to take the match victory. The Wildcats jumped to leads in both games, watched as the Grizzlies fought their way back into each game, and then finished off the Grizzlies each time.
   And that's been a problem for the Wildcats this year. Several times through the course of the season, the Wildcats watched as late game lead evaporated, but not on this day. No, on this day, the Wildcats held on, and won what might have been the most important match in recent memory for the Wildcats.
   From that point on, the Wildcat faithful were all smiles, even Mackey, who was battling a pounding headache, managed to smile through the pain. Everyone realized what an important win it was. For the seniors, it was the opportunity to win the final match of their career. For the underclassmen it was the opportunity to get not only a taste of playing in a state tournament, but they now knew what winning in the state tournament felt like, and for the family, friends, and fans of the Wildcats it was the chance to celebrate a winning end to a magical season.
   Everyone won on Friday at Salina, and the Wildcats did something to make their community proud. The went to Salina, performed with grit and determination, taking on the best teams in the state and handling everything that was dealt them. The Wildcats performed like champions and the entire Louisburg community is better for their efforts.

Wildcats and Panthers set to face each other

2010-10-22T22:44:00.000-07:00

The match-up we’ve all been waiting on is finally here. With Paola downing Spring Hill and Louisburg toppling the Trojans of Osawatomie, the battle for supremacy in the Kansas Class 4A District 5 will again take place between the 8-0 Wildcats of Louisburg and the 6-2 Panthers of Paola.

This year, the Panthers will get to host the showdown, it will be senior night in Paola, and will be one of the most anticipated football games in the eastern part of the state.

It’s too bad the Panthers got off to such a slow start, floundering around for their first two games and padding the records of Baldwin and DeSoto in the process, or this match-up could have been really huge, with two undefeated and highly ranked teams meeting at Panther Stadium.

It would have been nice to see both teams come in to Paola next week with unbeaten records, but since those opening two games, the Panthers have been playing as good a football on both sides of the ball as anyone in the state. Just because Paola has a couple of losses, this is going to be one whale of a football game.

But I’m here to tell you that this meeting between these two great programs may not be the last one this year, and if you want to dream just a bit, it’s the game these two will play on Friday, November 19, that will be the game that everyone will be watching.

You see, with the state football playoff system the way it is, this game really means nothing to the overall scheme of things. The only thing this game does is determine whether you play a district champion or a district runner up on Tuesday, November 2nd. Both the Panthers and Wildcats are in, they will advance to the bi-district round, and, I think they’ll go a lot further.

Currently there are just three undefeated teams in the “Eastern” half of the Class 4A Bracket (not counting the Friday games), Sumner Academy in District one at 7-0, Basehor-Linwood in District two and Louisburg in District five. The way the state bracket plays out, the top team in district one is at the top half of the Eastern bracket and the top team in district two is in the bottom half of the bracket. The top team from the Paola/Louisburg District -- District five is in the top half and the second team from district five is in the bottom half. So, it doesn’t make any difference which slot the Wildcats or Panthers get, the potential is there to meet an undefeated opponent in the Sectional Round of the playoffs on Friday, November 12th.

The bi-district and regional rounds don’t throw match-ups at either team that they should not be able to handle and puts each one squarely on a path to meet again in the Sub-State round with a trip to the State Championship on the line.

Just for the sake of argument, and since I’m writing this a week before these two teams match up on the field. I’m going to put Louisburg in the top spot coming out of the district, and Paola in the second spot. Now before you get up in arms, I’m not predicting anything, I have to put one team in one spot and the other in another, since Louisburg is currently undefeated, I’m putting them in the top spot.

Winning the district would put the Wildcats in a bi-district matchup with the second place team in district six which will most likely be Fort Scott. A win in that game would pit the Wildcats against the winner of an Independence and Columbus matchup and if they would get past that game waiting squarely on the horizon would be an unbeaten Sumner Academy squad. Sumner would have to defeat Perry-Lecompton and the winner of a DeSoto and Eudora rematch to get to a game against the Wildcats.

Finishing as the runner-up in the district is not always a bad thing, just ask the Panthers. Last year Paola got one game further in the playoffs than the Wildcats because they didn’t have to face eventual state champion Bishop Miege until the sub-state round, rather than the sectional round.

Anyway, the Panthers, as the district runner up would probably face Anderson County in the bi-district round, and then would take on the winner of a Baxter Springs and Chanute match-up. That would put them in a regional round against an undefeated Basehor-Linwood squad that would have had to play Atchison in the first round and the winner of a Baldwin and St. James Academy or Blue Valley Southwest (if you can believe either of those teams should be playing on). Now, I’m sure Paola would really like a second shot at Baldwin, so the sectional round would be really nice for the Panthers if Baldwin would just go ahead and knock Basehor out in the regional round and set up a rematch with the Bulldogs in the sectionals. Either way, the Panthers would be facing a undefeated Basehor or a once beaten Baldwin team in the sectional finals.

Should the Wildcats and Panthers both win those games -- look who’s waiting in the sub-state championship!

Now, I’m a firm believer in taking things one game at a time, playing the games on the field and not on paper, and there’s a whole lot of football to still be played, and any other cliche you can think of. But let’s be real, the way both of these teams are playing, it’s not a big stretch to see them playing each other again.

And if they do, November 19, 2010 will go down as one of the biggest nights of football in Miami County history.

Seeding gives Panthers shot at sub-state

2010-10-21T21:27:00.000-07:00

Since the Kansas Class 4A Sub-State Volleyball Tournament assignments were made weeks ago, I’ve felt the Louisburg sub-state was a three horse race, with the host team, the Louisburg Wildcats, and their Frontier League comrades the Paola Panthers and the Spring Hill Broncos the odds on favorites to take the tournament title and represent the area again at the State Volleyball Tournament in Salina.

With the release of the brackets for the tournament I’m even more convinced that the tournament champion will come from one of those three schools. In a previous blog entry, I outlined why I thought the Wildcats from Louisburg would be the eventual champion, and I’m standing by that opinion.

But, I’m here to tell you that if the Wildcats slip up, the Broncos and Panthers can, and will be right there to pick up the banner.

Really this column is more about what Spring Hill and Paola have to do to punch their ticket to state, rather than what the Wildcats have to do. For them, it’s easy, just play well, get a fast start and beat teams you’ve already beaten and you’re in. The main thing for the Wildcats is to get a fast start, this is a one and done tournament, the Wildcats can’t take a match off, they can’t take a game off, they have to fire on all cylinders, from the beginning, and they have to put teams away.

For the Broncos the task is simple, beat Louisburg. That’s it. The Broncos open with Iola, while the Wildcats open with Osawatomie, neither opponent will strike fear into the hearts of the Broncos and Wildcats, so they will match up again in the semi-finals. For either team, it’s then a matter of winning the final which will most likely be against Fort Scott or Paola. If you’re the Wildcats, you can look at those two teams and see opponents you’ve already beaten. If you’re the Broncos, you know you’ve just beaten a team who has beaten your upcoming opponent.

That brings us to the Panthers. A month ago I was ready to hand this tournament to the Panthers. They were playing solid volleyball, Paige Getz was developing into a solid middle hitter and Kelli Cullor and Cheyenne Rankin were doing great things on the outside. Melanie Golubski, Courtney Johnson and Elizabeth Edwards were strong along the back line with Mallorie Nelson starting to really get comfortable setting the ball for the hitters at the net. That was a month ago, and the Panthers have gone into a bit of tailspin lately, but all is not lost, and there’s no reason why the fourth seeded Panthers can’t take home the ultimate prize on Saturday at Louisburg.

It all starts with the seeding. In my opinion, the Panthers drew about the best position they could have, sure if they make it through their first round match, they’ll have to face the number one seeded Tigers of Fort Scott in the semi-final (I know, I’m giving the Tigers a win here, but let’s face it, Prairie View, the Tigers opening round opponent hasn’t won all year long, I don’t think they’ll suddenly start Saturday, but hey if they would happen to miraculously knock off the Tigers, that makes my argument for the Panthers even easier.). Any other seeding position, and they would have to face one or both of their biggest rivals just to get to the final. With this seeding Paola won’t face either until the final and by then they could have a tremendous amount of momentum on their side.

Why, you ask would the Panthers want to look to a semi-final match with the Tigers? Well, the Panthers already own match victories over two of the Tigers SEK comrades, the league champion Pittsburg Purple Dragons, and the third place Chanute Blue Comets. The Tigers, well they finished fourth in the SEK with a 6-2 record, so, if the Panthers can rekindle some of the fire they showed earlier in the season, there’s no reason to fear the Tigers. And, as I’ve mentioned before, the Tigers have been beaten by Louisburg (and Anderson County for that matter) and the Panthers know they can play with the Wildcats, so then its just a matter of going out an playing like they know they can.

From there, it’s a simple matter of defeating either Spring Hill or Louisburg in the final. Now for the Panthers, they’ve beaten Louisburg, at Louisburg, but have not had much luck with the Broncos this year, so to me, the Panthers have the best of both worlds here too. In a matchup with the Broncos, the Panthers can draw on the fact that it’s hard to beat a team three or four times during a season, and against the Wildcats, the Panthers can draw on the fact that they have just recently defeated the Wildcats on their home floor, and, it seems like the home team very seldom wins the sub-state tournament they host.

So there it is, it’s all there for the taking, the Panthers have a golden opportunity to pull off another stunner and make a return trip to the state tournament, but it can only happen if the Panthers take a quick trip back in time and find the team that was playing so well through the middle part of the season. If that team shows up, with this short, three game format, anything is possible.

It's tough having three "Home" teams!

2010-10-21T15:33:00.000-07:00

Originally Posted, Tuesday, October 19, 2010

You know, there were a few things I didn’t think through real clearly when I started MiamiCountySport.com two and a half years ago. But that’s really nothing new for me.

Now, in my defense, when this idea first came up in the spring of 2008, there was a promise by certain individuals who will remain nameless of a partnership, and at least some help in coverage for Louisburg and Osawatomie sports.

Well, when we launched in September 2008, I did have some help. My assistance in Osawatomie lasted about five football games. My Louisburg connection lasted two football seasons, but just football nothing else. So for the most part it’s been just me.

As the old saying goes “Hindsight’s 20/20”, and if I knew in the summer of 2008 what I know now, the coverage of the site would probably be a lot different, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way, and I’m proud of what we’re providing for the kids at Paola, Osawatomie and Louisbug High Schools.

My only regret right now is that I can’t extend coverage past the varsity level. There’s a bunch of great kids toiling away in junior varsity and freshman competitions, and for some, that will be as far as they ever get, but I simply cannot make it to that many games. This fall, between the three schools there are 11 varsity level sports, I try to make as much as I can, but impossible does not nearly begin to describe what I face each week when I make out my coverage schedule.

That leads me to my other great dilemma. I now have three “HOME” teams!

First, let me say, I’m a Paola Panther through and through. I was born in Paola, I was educated in Paola, and I’ll probably be buried here too. So, the Panthers are my “home” team. Always have been and always will be.

With that being said. I have been in the newspaper business all my life. My grandfather was a newspaper man, my dad was a newspaper man, and my college degree is in journalism and mass communications. So, doing what I do now is in my blood, and I’m kind of proud of my heritage.

But, I’m also a Louisburg Wildcat. You see, I spent nearly the first ten years of my newspaper career in Louisburg at the Herald. My two oldest daughters were born while we were in Louisburg, and some of our closest friendships were made while we were living in that community.

I’ve thought about this several times, when I look out at the Wildcat Volleyball team and see Colleen O’Brien, I think about writing stories about her parents Barry and Barb and their exploits as football, volleyball and basketball players at Louisburg High School. I see Kate Dixon and remember writing about her mom on the volleyball court and all the years I spent visiting with her grandmother Connie at Louisburg Elemenatry School, and I watch Kody Cook run the Wildcat offense on the football team and remember his dad playing for the Wildcats.

So, it’s pretty easy for me to be a “Wildcat” also, in fact, if situations hadn’t changed in the mid 1980’s we might still be living in Louisburg to this day, but that’s history, and it can’t be changed.

Now, when it comes to being a “Trojan” well, that’s a bit more difficult. Being born and raised in Paola in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, let’s just say it wasn’t “cool” to associate with Osawatomie people. In fact, it was about like the United States and the Soviet Union. It was like we were the good guys, and they were not, the two really didn’t mix, and the feelings were mutual.

It made for some really heated sports contests, and, quite frankly I couldn’t have cared less back then if the Trojans ever won a game. When was the last time you saw a basketball player, after fouling out on their opponents home court, and of course, taking a ton of harassment for it, turn at half court and flip off the home fans with not one, but two hands? It happened in Paola, my senior year, and I’ll remember it for ever, like it happened yesterday. My, my how things have changed!

It’s not like that anymore, and for the most part it’s a good thing. I’m sure there’s people out there that long for things to go back to the way they were and have the Panthers and Trojans as bitter rivals, but that’s just not going to happen. Part of me is saddened, because I see, not too many years down the road the day when Paola and Osawatomie don’t play each other in football, and the end of that Tom-Tom game traditions would be a shame.

But the bitter rivalry days are over, and that’s a good thing, because 30 years ago, I couldn’t do what I’m doing now. I couldn’t say I’m a “Trojan” guy, but I can now, and I’m glad that it’s that way.

Just a case in point, while I watched the Panthers defeat the Trojans last Friday night by a series record score, part of me reveled in the fact that the Panthers were doing so well, but another part of me felt the disappointment the Trojans players, coaches and fans had to feel. I was on the losing end of a game like that against the Trojans my junior year, I remember how I felt, and I could now look at it through the Trojans eyes also. It hurt for me back then, and I hurt for me now.

Those feelings of empathy for the Trojans didn’t diminish the feelings of happiness for the Panthers, they just continue to drive home the point that I now have three “home” teams and I fell good when they win and bad when the lose, even when they’re playing each other.

So, while the point of this blog is the fact that with three “home” teams, it’s hard sometimes to compliment one without the slighting one of the others, it’s always going to be my intention to give the kids that participate in the sports programs at each of the three schools all the support that I can.

I will, to be best of my ability try and keep messages positive, but sometimes, positive for one is negative for the other, it’s a fact of life, and I’m not always going to be able to avoid it, so forgive me, in advance, if something I write compliments one school, but not another. Please don’t tell me “you’re a Paola guy.” The fact is, I’m a “Paola” guy, a “Louisburg” guy and an “Osawatomie” guy. I do this for the kids, and every school has great kids, doing amazing things and playing their hearts out for their team.

I hope that each and every one of those players take the field and give 110% for their team, if they don’t they’re not only hurting themselves, but their team mates, their fans and their school, and that would be a shame. But in the end, it’s just a game, and everyone needs to remember that.

Louisburg is favorite for Volleyball Sub-State

2010-10-21T15:03:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted, Monday, October 18, 2010

Now don’t take this as gospel, and don’t go and book rooms in Salina, at least not yet, but a week from now, the Louisburg Wildcat Volleyball team should be practicing for their shot at the big time, the Kansas Class 4A State Volleyball Tournament.

I don’t have a crystal ball, and I’m sure not very good at predicting the future, because if I was, I’d have won the lottery, and I’d be sipping some cool beverage in some exotic location, but I’m not, an the way my luck runs, I’m not going to any time soon either.

No, all I have is my own two eyes, and the time it takes to watch quite a bit of volleyball with a bunch of different teams through the course of a season.

When the sub-state tournament assignments were made by the state, it was pretty obvious that the Louisburg Sub-State was going to be a three team race, with the favorites being the Wildcats, along with their Frontier League comrades, the Spring Hill Broncos and the Paola Panthers.

The remaining five team are the Fort Scott Tigers, the Anderson County Bulldogs, the Iola Mustangs, the Prairie View Buffalos and the Osawatomie Trojans.

Let’s face it, there’s just no “Powerhouse” team in this sub-state. It’s about as evenly matched as it can be, so even in fact that the state did just the opposite this year in assignments than what they did to Paola two years ago when it was their turn to host a sub-state.

In 2008, if you remember, the Panthers had one of the best teams in the eastern half of the state, and one of the top two teams in the Frontier League. And what, in it’s infinite wisdom did the state do that year?

All the KSHSAA did in 2008 was load up the Paola sub-state with the St. James Thunder and the Ottawa Cyclones. St. James was the NUMBER ONE ranked team in the state in ALL Classes that year, and Ottawa was the number four ranked team in Class 4A.

All THREE teams deserved to be in the state tournament, but only one could go. The Thunder, of course, wiped out the field in the sub-state and the state tournaments that year, (and last year too!). But the point is, two of those three teams didn’t stand a chance!

Well, that’s not the case this year, quite the opposite, I think there’s three teams again that have a chance to win this year’s sub-state at Louisburg, and here’s my take on it in ascending order.

Third, the Paola Panthers. Just about a month ago, I had the Panthers in the favorite spot. And, that’s interesting, because they had just come off a lackluster performance in the Baldwin Tournament, and were not playing very good volleyball. But something happened between the Saturday playing of the Baldwin tournament and the next Tuesday when the Panthers traveled back to Baldwin to take on the Bulldogs in a Frontier League match.

The Panthers destroyed the Bulldogs on their home court that night and really started to play “Panther Volleyball”, and that continued for the better part of September and October. Although the Panthers stock slipped a bit following the Spring Hill Tournament, that was more a product of the rise of Spring Hill rather than bad play by the Panthers.

But the Panthers stock slipped badly last weekend at the Frontier League Tournament, when they went 1-5 on the day, and have started to tinker with their line-up which has caused confusion at times, and seriously damaged their changes, at least in my opinion.

Second, the Spring Hill Broncos. Like Paola, the Broncos fortunes have risen and fallen through the course of the last couple of weeks. As I said above, the Broncos rose to the top of my favorite list after their performance in their own tournament. The took on all comers, falling short of the championship, but playing good, inspired volleyball against some very difficult, bigger class schools. Plus they defeated their two sub-state rivals in head to head matches, and rather easily.

But again, like Paola, the Broncos were not sharp in the Frontier League event, and were beaten badly by Louisburg, and although they beat Paola, they won the first game 31-29 before losing the second 25-10. If one point would have gone the other way late in that first game, the Panthers would have won, and the outcomes of later matches might have been different. The Broncos struggled to a 2-5 record in the tournament and have to have confidence issues heading into next weekend.

First, the Louisburg Wildcats. Let me preface these remarks by saying, there’s a whole host of reasons why I think the Wildcats will win this tournament, and one very big reason why they might not.

We’ll get the bad news out of the way first -- host teams seldom win their own sub state tournaments. I don’t know why, but just look back a couple of years, 2009, at Spring Hill, Paola defeats Ottawa for the championship. 2008, at Paola, well, I already told you about that one.

So, now that I’ve told you why the Wildcats have a big strike against them, I’ll tell you a few reasons why I think they will succeed.

First and foremost, they’re playing pretty good volleyball, at the right time of the season. They have the best front row of the three team’s I’ve mentioned and when they’re on, they can hit with just about anyone. Marisa Mackey, Colleen O’Brien and Emily Lemke are very tough, and they you bring in Anna Bell off the bench and there’s very little drop off in play. Kate Dixon is efficient and accurate in distributing the ball, and every one of those girls know how to get down to the floor to dig and return shots.

Second, and maybe most importantly, they’ve played, AND BEATEN, every team in the tournament with the exception of Anderson County, and with apologies to the Bulldogs, I don’t think they will be a factor in the event. Every other team the Wildcats might face in the bracket they have played and beaten, some multiple times.

The Wildcats are not a lock, they haven’t been an unbeatable team this season, far from it. They have a nasty habit of not finishing games, getting ahead and then not putting teams away. But they demonstrated a bit more of a killer instinct on Saturday, and if they can harness that, they can win.

Anything can happen, witness the Panthers last year. It’s a one and done, three game sprint, but right now, for my money, I’m betting on the Wildcats.

Paola can win with "One Dimensional" Football!

2010-10-21T15:02:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted, Monday, October 18, 2010

How many times do we watch and listen to football coaches preach about being a “balanced” football team?

Every coach expounds on the merits of having balance between the run and the pass. He will quote statistics of how you must first establish the run and that will open up the passing game. How if you can’t at least present the “threat” of throwing passes down field, teams will “load the box” and stop the running game and then suddenly your “one dimensional” offense will be dead in the water.

Well fans, I’m here today to tell you this, if the Paola Panthers are going to make a run deep in the playoffs, they will do it as a one dimensional team.

Now, this next statement is an oversimplification of the facts, because more factors were involved in the Panthers season opening losses to Baldwin and DeSoto than a few forward passes, but for the sake of my arguments right now, I’m here to tell you, one of the big reasons why the Panthers started out 0-2 and stand at 5-2 instead of 7-0 and heading for a REALLY BIG game against Louisburg in 10 day or so is this.

The Panthers started out the season THINKING they could throw the football! Now, the Panthers didn’t change their offense and go to a full fledged spread, tossing it around 40 times a game like the Osawatomie Trojans. No, they were more conservative, with Seth Kern tossing 29 passes in the opening two games.

For a Paola Panther offense, that IS a spread offense! And, there’s more to those stats, first, the Panthers completed just 10 of those 29 attempts, a woeful completion percentage, and they gained just 108 yards, that’s just not very good.

But, there’s more to those stats than meets the eye. It wasn’t necessarily bad for the Panthers to throw the ball that many times, but, it was more a product of when the passes were thrown. During the Baldwin game, a couple of times, the offense got down field, deep into Bulldog territory running the ball, and then all of a sudden, boom, three passes in a row, and the drive stalled. It just didn’t make sense.

Luckily for the Paola faithful, after those first two games, cooler heads prevailed and the Panthers scrapped the passing game and went almost strictly with a running offense. In the last five games, all blow out wins I might add, the Panthers have attempted just 10 passes, with one completion for a whopping 14 yards.

But the rushing attack, that has flourished! After running for 217 and 315 yard is each of the first two games, not bad for most programs, but anemic by Paola standards, the Panthers have ripped opposing defenses for 471, 386, 305, 541 and 544 yards. The last two represent new school records, and it doesn’t look like there’s any end in sight.

In fact, I’ll make this argument right now, even though the Panthers are almost exclusively a running football team, I will say right now they are far from “one dimensional.” I say this because the Panthers have more than one person that can torch a defense on the ground.

Look no further than this set of stats: Skylar Hawkins is getting the lions share of the carries and had 1171 yards so far this year on 138 carries. But, Tyler Henness has 811 yards on 67 carries and Seth Kern has added 406 yards on 67 carries, that’s 1217 yards on 134 carries -- nearly identical stats to Hawkins. When you add in Tanner Staats who’s picked up 266 yards on just 24 carries, it’s pretty easy to see why Paola can line up and beat most teams just running the ball.

Plus, the Panthers have the ability to take the ball up the middle, hit a crease at the tackle/tight end spot, or get to the edge and go outside. Teams that put 8-9-10 in the “box” better make sure they make the tackle within five yards of the line of scrimmage, because if they don’t these guys are off to the races.

In the Panthers latest record setting performance against Osawatomie last Friday night, Paola’s longest scoring drive was seven plays -- seven plays and it went for 46 yards and took 2:28 off the clock. Paola had THREE, one play drives, going for 35, 34 and 77 yards, they had FOUR more drives that lasted just three plays, the shortest at 11 yards and the longest at 49 yards. Those are possession numbers that most PASSING teams would envy!

Now, I’m not here to say the Panthers and win a state championship running the ball 50 times a game and never passing it, but I will say that it’s my opinion that the Panthers can go a long way in the playoffs without needing to throw a single pass.

Somebody out there might have the horses up front, the linebackers and the speed at corner and safety to contain the Panthers stable of running backs, who knows, it might be Louisburg in 10 days or so, but I know one thing, the Panthers have been fun to watch the last five games, and they’re going to be even more fun to watch in the next five games, and beyond, maybe all the way to a state championship!

Panthers, Wildcats on Collision Course

2010-10-21T15:00:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted, Tuesday, October 12, 2010

With the beginning games of the District Playoffs set to start on Friday Night, there’s one thing that is almost a certainty once again this year.

When the Louisburg Wildcats come calling to Panther Stadium on Thursday, October 28, 2010, the game will determine the district championship, just as it has so many times before.

Now, before my friends in Osawatomie and Spring Hill get all upset with me, I know, both the Panthers and the Wildcats will have to face the Trojans and Broncos in the next two weeks, but the season so far has shown us the Panthers and Wildcats should get past their next two opponents to meet on the last Thursday of the month with the district championship on the line.

The only thing that could have made this better would have been if the Panthers hadn’t decided to take the first two games of the season off, resulting in surprising losses at home to Baldwin and DeSoto. It would have been nice if the two teams would have come into the game unbeaten, with the Frontier League Championship on the line also.

But the Wildcats will have that locked up by then, but the district championship will be another matter. Of course, it doesn’t really make a difference who wins or loses the district, with the Kansas High School Football Championship bracketing system, the only thing it means is the winner gets to play a second place district team. In theory, this makes the district champion’s next game easier, but in practice it really doesn’t make a whole lot of difference.

But the records won’t matter either, as both teams are now playing at a very high level. In fact, they could meet again in the sub-state championship game to determine which will advance to the state championship game later in November.

Now that would be a great thing!

I'm Baaaaaaaaaack!

2010-10-21T14:59:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted, Thursday, September 30, 2010

It’s going on Midnight on Thursday, and this is going to be brief. I’m just going to say I’m back, and I plan on writing something just about everyday, so check back often. It’s been quite hectic in my life, but I’ve had a great time this fall covering the local sports scene.

Football has been interesting to say the least, Louisburg has gotten off the start I thought they would and are sitting at 4-0 on the season. The Panthers and Trojans did not get off to great starts, but the Panthers have righted the ship and look to be on the right track. The Trojans on the other hand have problems, but we’ll talk about that later.

The local volleyball teams are all about where I through they’d be. The Panthers and Wildcats are playing well, and the Trojans are trying to learn how to win. The Panthers will play out and beat you with perseverance, they never let you rest. The Wildcats, well they can just line up and pound you, but they sometimes have problems with focus, and the Trojans, well, they are still learning to finish the game, when the do, they’re going to be tough.

Soccer is another story, the Wildcats are one of the top teams in the Frontier League. The Panthers, well they can’t seem to figure out how to put the ball in the goal. The Panthers have scored four, count ‘em four, goals on the season. But, they’ve done more with four goals than most teams, as they are 2-1-1 in games they have scored in, not bad, but unfortunately, they’ve been shut out seven times this season.

Finally the Cross Country teams have been running well. The Panther boys are again strong and solid top to bottom. The Panther girls have gotten surprising performances from some young runners, and are battling a few nagging injuries, but are placing well in their events. The Wildcats and Trojans all have quality runners, and are all improving week to week.

That’s it, I’m out for tonight, I’ll try and examine the football games tomorrow morning.

Fans need to show more class

2010-10-21T14:58:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted, Saturday, January 30, 2010

I’m going to tell you up front, this blog entry may step on some toes, but I feel strongly that this needs to be said, so if this makes you mad, so be it, but more than likely, if you’re one of the angry ones then you need to take a step back and think about what I’m about to say.

On the front page of the program for the Spring Hill High School Invitational Basketball tournament is the following statement.

“As a member of the Kansas State High School Activities Association, Spring Hill High School supports good sportsmanship at all our our school’s activities. We want you to cheer enthusiastically FOR your team, but not AGAINST the other teams, their fans or the officials. We want these games to be enjoyable for every individual. Remember, all participants are trying to the fullest extent of their ability. Please remember to appreciate their efforts through your courtesy.”

The most telling part of this statement is the part that says to cheer enthusiastically FOR your team but not AGAINST the other teams, their fans or the officials.

Unfortunately, in the last three or four games I have attended there have been glaring examples of how NOT to abide by this simple statement and I’m going to cite each now.

In the seventh place game of the Spring Hill Tournament, between Louisburg and Bishop Ward, there were understandably few fans in the seats for the 11:30 a.m. tipoff. Spring Hill has a large, beautiful main gym, and there were probably less than 100 people there, few cheerleaders and no pep bands, needless to say you could hear just about every conversation in the building, every squeak of a shoe, every coaches instruction, and every officials call.

There was one fan in particular who was berating the officials unmercifully, questioning just about every call, for or against his team. The officials heard him, yes they did, in fact, during time outs late in the game, the official visited with me about the loud mouthed fan. He expressed his disdain for the treatment he was receiving and said he wished he could just go up in the stands and hand the fan his shirt and whistle and tell him “if you think you can do better, here you go!”

The problem was, if the official had done that, the fan would have vehemently refused the offer.

The second example occurred Wednesday night in the semi-final game of the Louisburg girls tournament between Louisburg and Belton. It was a close game, the Wildcats trailed several times by as much as ten points, but kept coming back and finally won the game by three points.

Now the Louisburg student body has some of the best support of any school around. This night there was a large contingent of boys cheering on the girls and that’s great!

The problem I had was this, some of the cheers and cheering tactics used in the college ranks have started to filter their way down to the high school and it goes against everything that the above statement embodies.

The guys were cheering AGAINST Belton as hard as they were cheering FOR Louisburg. The were yelling during free throws, doing the “Boing, Boing, WOOOO!” cheer as the Pirates brought the ball down court and passed in their offense, and finally, when a Belton player fouled out, they mocked the player by doing the “LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT . . . SIT DOWN!” cheer as the player returned to the bench.

These are HIGH SCHOOL athletes, some are freshmen and sophomores, 14, 15, and 16 year olds, they should not be berated and yelled at while they are still trying to LEARN to play the game. Good sportsmanship needs to be nurtured at this level, not destroyed.

Finally, last night at the Paola High School boys game with Eudora, a Eudora fan sat one row behind and just off to the side of the Cardinal bench. He was rude, obnoxious and classless in his treatment of the officials. He questioned every call that went against his team, and every call that went for Paola.

Don’t think the officials couldn’t hear him, I heard him and I’m about as close to the court as you can get without being inside the lines. I could hear this guy at the other end of the floor during the second half.

Something needs to be done, and here’s what I think should happen:

When a fan, a group of fans, or the entire student body gets out of hand, the officials should warn the offending team’s bench that the fans are out of control and are not abiding by the rules of good sportsmanship and common decency. It can be up the the bench, i.e. the Head Coach or Athletic Director, to get the offending parties under control.

If the behavior continues, the officials should assess a technical foul to the bench of the offending fan or group of fans.

If that does not stop the behavior, then a second technical should be assessed, which would mean the head coach of the offending team would be kicked out of the game an would be asked to leave the gymnasium. If a few of these jerks saw their behavior get their head coach kicked out, the behavior would stop.

Kicking the fans out doesn’t do the trick, most of the time they just sneak back in, find a different place to sit and keep quiet for a game, then it’s right back to the same old crap the next game.

The high school game should be fun, sure there’s pressure, but let’s let the kids be kids while they can, and let’s let everybody play the game, after all, it’s just a game!

My thoughts on the National "Championship" Game

2010-10-21T14:57:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted, Thursday, January 7, 2010

When I set out to write this blog, I was pretty set on keeping my thoughts on a local level. I really didn’t want to stray too far from high school sports, heck, there’s enough national pundits out there spilling word after word about college and professional sports, but as I sit here less than eight hours from the start of the BCS “National Championship” game, snowed in, with all the local sporting events postponed by mother nature, I though I’d put a few things in words on my take on the BCS game. I’m not a big fan of the current system, and if you asked me what the letters BCS stand for, my answer would not include the words “bowl” and “series”!

The current system is a joke, one has to look no further than the Fiesta Bowl to see what I mean. The Fiesta Bowl matchup between Boise State and Texas Christian University, while intriguing, and pretty fun to watch, made absolutely no sense. What did either school have to gain from that matchup? What did either conference have to gain from that matchup? The short answer is NOTHING!

For the past few years, the “little guys” the “mid-major” conferences have been screaming that their teams, while rolling up gaudy numbers against arguably inferior competition were worthy of playing the “big boys” in the high dollar bowl games AND were worthy of competing for the so called “National Championship”.

The pollsters have gone along with that notion, pushing the undefeated teams to the top of the list like it was their right. Since they were unbeaten, the deserved to be highly ranked, and for the most part the computers have agreed, thus we see unbeaten teams like Cincinnati, Boise State and TCU ascend the charts and knock on the door of the holy grail of NCAA Division I football the “BCS National Championship” Game.

Now, none of those teams have gotten that far, and it’s unlikely, given the current system that any of them will, short of an act of congress or a presidential decree, or some other legal wrangling. But, they have pushed their way into the BCS Bowl games, and have, at least, gained the right to face off with the “Big Boys”.

That brings me to point number one. Why in the hell did the Fiesta bowl take Boise State AND TCU. Wasn’t the whole point of this exercise to see if the mid-majors could compete with the BCS Conferences? Wouldn’t a Boise State vs. Iowa and a TCU vs. Georgia Tech matchup be more fun? We got to see what Cincinnati was made of in the Sugar Bowl, and they proved to be not quite ready for prime time when they faced the Florida Gators.

Now, Boise State shocked Oklahoma a couple of years ago in one of the most memorable “David and Goliath” battles ever in the Fiesta Bowl, they proved that a mid-major could take on a storied program, go toe to toe and come out a winner. I would have rather seen if Boise State could have handled Georgia Tech, and seen what TCU could have done against Iowa. Then we might know a little more of what might happen if one of these “Cinderella’s” ever make it to the big dance.

And that brings me to point number two -- the current system SUCKS!

Every other sport has a playoff, but not the NCAA FBS division. There’s that “BS” part again, and I guarantee you my version doesn’t end in “bowl subdivision”. I still don’t understand why there can’t be a playoff. All the arguments from “it will take too much time away from the classroom” to “it will kill the bowl system” is a bunch of you know what!

Here’s my idea -- Take the current 120 FBS teams and add eight more, forming eight conferences with 16 teams each (Notre Dame will HAVE to join a conference). Each team will play a 12 game schedule (7 division games and 5 non-conference games) in the 13 weeks between the first Saturday in September and the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Each team will be trying to ultimately win the DIVISION Championship, because that will get them into the CONFERENCE Championship game which is the first layer of the PLAYOFF system. Non-Conference games will not count against the DIVISION record, so the really great regional and national match-ups we all love can still be played. In effect, each team enters the playoffs the day conference play begins.

Once the 16 Division winners are determined, the eight conferences will play their championship games on the first two Saturday’s in December, leaving eight Conference Champions who will advance to the final rounds of the playoff.

Here’s where the current bowl system comes back into play. On New Year’s Day (remember that USED to be THE day to watch College Football), the eight conference champions will be seeded 1 through 8 and will be matched up in four current bowl games (we’ll use a rotation of the current BCS games and add the Gator and Cotton Bowls for example). So in this example seeds 1-8 would play in the Gator Bowl, seeds 2-7 in the Cotton Bowl, seeds 3-6 in the Fiesta Bowl, and seeds 4-5 in the Sugar Bowl.

One week later the Orange Bowl and Rose Bowl would host the national semi-final games, and one week after that the true “National Championship” Game could be held at one of the current bowl venues, or put out for bids like the Super Bowl.

As soon as the Conference championship games are played the other 30 or so bowl games could then fill their slots with any team OTHER than the eight Conference Champions. All other bowl games would need to be played BEFORE New Year’s Day.

This system would add one extra game for four teams and another for the two teams playing for the national championship, but that’s it. There would be no lost classroom time, because most schools don’t start up again till mid January anyway, and with this system, the National Championship game would be played on January 14th each year.

Now it would be harder on the fans of the teams that advance. There would have to be some decisions made as to what level of the championship run to attend, but that’s life.

Is this a perfect system, no. But as long as the bowls exist, there will never be a perfect system. But it’s sure better than what we’ve got, and it sets up a system whereby on the first day of September EVERY team enters play with a chance to win the title.

Wildcats seem to have the upper hand

2010-10-21T14:55:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted, Tuesday, December 22, 2009

We’ve reached the holiday break for area high schools, each team now has about ten days off to rest, be with families and recharge their “batteries” in preparation for the grind of the winter sports schedule during January, February and early March.

I’ve had the chance to see each of the loca teams play in person at least once, and in most cases multiple times so far this season, and it is evident that the teams to beat, at least in Miami County, are the Louisburg Wildcats.

The Wildcat boys basketball team is unbeaten, new Head Coach Chad Harvey has his team playing at a high level, and buying into the new system. Add to that, Harvey has a talented roster of players, and the Wildcats are clearly the cream of the Miami County crop. The Wildcat girls have lost but once, and that was on a disputed, fluke of a call against Burlington on their home floor, which saw the ‘Cats go from two down to nine down with just 18 seconds to play in the game. Finally the Wildcat wrestlers have the Hood brothers, all of which are ranked at the top of their weight classes, as well as several other tough wrestlers. The ‘Cats have taken two tournament titles on the young season, and will be looking for more after the holidays.

The Frontier League will present challenges for the Wildcats, Gardner-Edgerton is a very talented team, and will very tough to beat. But look for the Wildcats, all three teams to be at or near the top when the playoffs start in March.

The Osawatomie Trojan boys basketball team is also playing at a high level, they have a very talented and quick lineup and will be a force in the Pioneer League, it will take some time to see if the league will be challenging enough to toughen the Trojans for a deep run toward the state tournament.

The Trojan girls basketball team will struggle this year, and it will be no surprise, given the fact the Trojans have but one senior and one junior on their squad. Trojans Head Coach Don Blanchat will have to mold a group of Freshmen and Sophomores into a cohesive unit. It will be interesting, as one minute the girls will play like seniors, and the next they won’t be able to get the ball across half court. Look for good things from the Trojans, a couple of years from now.

The Trojan wrestlers have talent, starting with one of the top ranked wrestlers in the state at 189 pounds in Zach Grimes, but they too are young and inexperienced, and will struggle at times to grow and compete.

Another bright spot this winter is the Osawatomie-Paola boys swimming team. Two meets into the season, the boys have qualified multiple swimmers for the state competition and should qualify at least two more relay teams in the upcoming weeks.

That leaves me with my Paola Panthers, I don’t know how many games the Panther boys or girls will win in basketball, but I do know one thing, they will always be competitive and will never quit. The Panther boys are young, with lots of sophomores and juniors, and just one senior, the future can be bright for the Panthers, but they have to find someone to consistently hit shots from outside the paint, and a consistent floor leader that knows the flow of a game and when to speed things up and when to slow them down.

The Paola girls are struggling to find an identity early in the season, but when you’re coming off a year like the Panthers had last year, that’s top be expected. The Panthers lost three of the most talented players ever to wear the black and gold, and Head Coach Stuart Ross and his squad must find a way to play “Panther Basketball” while molding players to fit the necessary parts.

If the last three weeks are an indication of what to look forward to in the next two and a half months, one thing will be for certain . . . it will be a fun ride, and I’m looking forward to it!

Sometimes we "Get It"

2010-10-21T14:53:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted, Sunday, November 29, 2009

With the completion of the State Football Championship games, we can now close the books on the 2009 fall sports season. Although the Panthers fell a game short of their ultimate goal of a state championship game appearance, the fall season can be looked on as a success on many levels. All three fall sports, football, volleyball, soccer and cross country made deep runs in the state championship playoff system. The Panther boys cross country team appeared in the state meet again, and the Panther Volleyball team went to state for the third time in the last four years. The Panther Soccer team won its first ever state playoff game and the Panther football squad made another deep run in the playoffs, falling to eventual state champion Bishop Miege in the sub-state game held at Panther Stadium.

The title of this blog entry is “Sometimes we get it!”. What is “It”? To me, “it” is the idea that we all want to compete at the highest level, all the time. We want to test ourselves against the best that our competition level has to offer. We want to be measured against the best, to ultimately be the best. The Paola Panther fall sports coaches have set the bar high in the past few years, putting the Panthers on the map when it comes to playoff level competition.

It’s a big deal now when a team faces, and defeats, the Paola Panthers. Other schools measure their level of success by looking back and saying they played and defeated Paola. School look at their schedules and see the Panthers on the horizon, and they mark that game with a little extra, because they know they will have to play their best to compete, and to be victorious.

It has been accurately said the road to the state championship in Class 4A football runs through Holton, because the Wildcats have been so good for so long that every team who makes it to the state championship game will have defeated them along the way. Well, the same is beginning to be true about Paola. Year in and year out, the Panther football team is one of the last four or eight standing when the playoffs are drawing to a close. “It” is alive and well in Panther football.

Volleyball has “It” too. All the Panthers did this year was re-load a team that lost to of its best players of all time, and after a rocky early season, found an identity and rode it all the way to the state championships. Granted, the Panther horses were not as strong as the others at state, but that doesn’t matter, “It” got the Panthers to state, and “It” will serve them well for years to come.

The Paola Panther boys cross country team has “It” too, developing a strong core group of runners that know what it takes to compete and win at the highest levels. The Panther girls are finding “It” too, but they are a year or so behind their counterparts in making it happen.

The Panther soccer team won its first ever state playoff game, and is gaining an identity, and learning what it takes to play at the state’s highest levels. The soccer program is learning quickly that “It” is needed to compete, and it’s not good enough to just win a game or two, to be really good, to compete at the highest levels, “It” must be found and lived day in and day out. The soccer team got a glimpse of “It” winning the first round playoff game, they must not continue to build and move deeper in the state tournament in the coming years.

“It” is defined differently by each and every school, coach, athlete and parent. Some are happy with lesser accomplishments and lower levels of competitiveness, and that is fine. “It” can be a league title, or a tournament title, teams have to compete at a level where they are comfortable, much like the “Peter Principal” teams will rise to the level where they are most comfortable and will stay there, that is until the climate changes and something or someone demands they step outside their comfort zone.

The Panthers have made that commitment, they are committed at all levels to compete, not just once in a lifetime, but every year, in every game, for the ultimate prize. The Panthers, their fans, players, coaches and administration have “it” and it was fun to watch it in action this fall. I can’t wait to see what the winter sports have in store!

Another Kansas Class Disparity

2010-10-21T14:51:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted, Thursday, November 12, 2009

The Louisburg Wildcats face the ultimate in class disparity this week as they take on the Bishop Miege Stags in one of the Kansas State Class 4A Sectional Playoff games tomorrow night.

The Cats are sporting a stellar 10-1 record, losing only to one of the best teams in Class 5A, the Gardner-Edgerton Trailblazers. Now the Cats have to face Bishop Miege in the Sectional championship. The problem is not facing the Stags, that will be difficult enough, but Miege isn’t a 4A school.

They are playing at the 4A level this year, but they are classified in all other sports as a 5A school. In fact, Miege has already finished second in soccer and first in volleyball at the 5A level! Now, they’re working on winning a state football championship, and have a pretty good shot, with at least two and maybe more Division 1 athletes, at the 4A Level!

This is not unusual. The Paola Panthers won their first state championship at the 5A level, while classified as a 4A school. It happens all the time, but why?

The state feels, in it’s infinite wisdom, that the football classifications need to be made on a two year basis, so the districts can be scheduled on a home and home basis. Thus making the football classifications change every two years. The problem is, the state reclassifies all the schools in the state on a yearly basis. Schools at the top and bottom of classifications move up or down each year with changes in enrollment, thus the fun times ahead for the Wildcats.

There’s two solutions to this mess, first, re-align the football district every year, but that would make scheduling harder for schools, so that is not a practical solution.

The simpler solution is to re-classify all school on a two year basis. If the school is a 4A school, it will remain 4A for two years, in ALL sports, not just football. It won’t change the fact that private schools, like Meige, seem to win the lion’s share of state titles, that’s another argument al together. But it will, at least have schools playing at consistent classifications throughout each season.

Order has been Restored!

2010-10-21T14:50:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted, Sunday, November 8, 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen . . . .

Order has been restored to the universe!

K-State 17 -- K.U. 10

Random Thoughts on a Tuesday Morning

2010-10-21T14:48:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted, Tuesday, November 3, 2009

It’s the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, it’s election day, and while there’s nothing really earth shattering on the election front, unless you’re into politics in the north east, I thought I’d just give a few random thoughts on the local sports scene for the past week or so.

PANTHERS FALL TO WILDCATS IN DISTRICT

This game played out exactly like I though it would. I was saying all along in the week leading up to the game that the team that made plays would win. Now that’s not some kind of genius insight, it’s just fact. The Cats and Panthers are pretty evenly matched teams, and may well play each other again down the road in the playoffs.

But what that game all boiled down to is five or six plays by the Wildcats, something like three fourth down conversions, two 37 yard pass plays and a 57 yard touchdown run. Other than those plays, the Wildcats were pretty pedestrian against the Panthers. Blame it on the weather, or give credit to the Panther defense or a combination of both. But what it tells me is both Paola and Louisburg are pretty good teams.

The Panthers, on the other hand can look to plays they didn’t make, which ultimately cost them the game. How many times did the center/quarterback exchange fall to the turf? How many times did a penalty stop a promising drive? Finally, why did the Panthers suddenly turn into a passing team in the second half, when anyone who’s followed Paola football for the year, with more than just a passing interest, knows the Panthers can’t throw and catch on a dry field, let alone one that a soggy, muddy, messy, stinky, quagmire like the Louisburg field was.

You only have to look as far as the Panthers first drive of the game to see how the “shoot yourself in the foot” syndrome cost the Panthers the game. The Wildcats got the ball and were stuffed by Paola. The Panther took control and marched the ball down the field and faced a third and short at the 21 yard line. Three yards later the Panthers appeared to have a first down at the 18, but a holding penalty pushed the ball back to the 31, drive over. Finally in the third quarter, the Panthers, still trailing just 14-0, recovered a Wildcat fumble at the LHS 22 yard line, four plays and three net yard later, the Panthers turned the ball back to the Wildcats. Two trips inside the Louisburg 20, two wasted opportunities.

In games like these, you have to make plays, unfortunately for the Panthers, they were not able to make the plays. For their effort, the Wildcats get to host Anderson County from the Pioneer League, anyone remember what the Cats did to the last two Pioneer League teams they faced? The Panthers travel to Chanute for a much tougher test, but they’re all tough from here on out.

PANTHER VOLLEYBALL AT STATE

The Paola Panthers Volleyball team turned into sort of a Cinderella story late in the season. Defying the odds, the Panthers won the Frontier League Tournament and the Sub State Tournament on consecutive weekends to earn their second trip to state in the last three years. Well the fairy tale trip to the ball turned into the “Nightmare in Salina” as the Panthers were rolled out of pool play by top seeded Abilene, Kansas City super-team, St. James Academy, and Girard.

The Panthers couldn’t have scripted a better start to the tournament, jumping all over Abilene and leading 14-4. I even commented that for a #1 seed, Abilene looked pretty average. But like all good teams, Abilene settled down, and not only came back to make the first game close, they came all the way back and won the game. That was the beginning of the end for the Panthers, and although the girls battled hard, they were unable to recover, and were bounced from the tournament in three matches.

To the Panthers credit, they never gave up, they continued to dig, and serve and kill like it was the first game of the season. They were a credit to themselves and to the school.

Coach Michelle Abshire talks of the Panther Volleyball Tradition, well, it’s alive and well, and living on in the actions of the 2009 Paola Panther Volleyball team.

PANTHER SOCCER AND XC COMPETE AT STATE

The Panther Soccer team advanced to their first ever regional final before losing 2-0 to Independence on Friday. The Panther Soccer team has been fun to watch this year, although they lack a pure scorer, someone who can finish every time they get into the scoring zone. For that reason, many golden opportunities to put points on the board have gone by the wayside. Still the Panthers battled and fought and represented themselves and the school well in every game they played.

The Panther Boys Cross Country team ran well at the state championship in Wamego on Saturday. The Panthers finished eighth overall, but were only five points out of sixth place. As coach Lesley Wilson said, every place matters, ever second matter, ever person you pass at this level matters.

The Panther return six of seven runners who competed at state, so the future of Panther Cross Country is sound.

“FLASH” HARRINGTON PASSES AWAY

I was saddened to hear of the passing of longtime Paola sports reporting icon Bob Harrington over the weekend at the age of 83. “Flash” as we Panther athletes of the early 1970s called him was an ever present fixture at Panther sporting events for what seems like forever.

I got to know Bob as a young boy, when my dad worked with him at the Miami County Publishing Company. Bob was not only a good sports reporter, but a talented Linotype operator in the old newspaper shop. He and my dad sat for hours setting type for the paper when it was printed the old fashioned way, with hot lead type.

I know we gave him a hard time every time he came and took our picture for football, basketball, or whatever sport season we were in, and in later years when he came to take our alumni reunion pictures, but we always respected him, and he always made sure we were covered in the paper.

I’m going to miss “Flash”, he was truly one of a kind.

Class 4A Needs to Change (Part 2 of 2)

2010-10-21T14:44:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted Friday, October 23, 2009

There’s just not many ways the state can divide the schools, across all classifications, to make things more equitable. It would be too daunting a task, plus in most classifications, the overall disparity is not that great. Yes, 6A and 5A have a larger disparity from top to bottom at 492 and 456, but these schools almost all have over 1000 students, so the talent pool is much larger so the disparity makes less difference.

But there is a simple solution and that would be to subdivide class 4A into a Division 1 and Division 2, each with 32 teams, at least for football. It needs to be stated again, I’m only talking about football, it has always gone by its own rules anyway, just remember back to Paola’s Class 5A state championship which was won while playing in Class 4A in every other sport, so “playing up” can be done -- it’s just not very easy.

In this case, Osawatomie would be the sixth biggest school in Division 2 and the top to bottom enrollment differential would be 121 students. Paola would still be the sixth largest school in Division 1 and Louisburg would be the fourth smallest in Division 1, but again with an enrollment difference between top and bottom of 180 students.

For football, you could realign the districts within divisions, drop the first and second place teams moving on out of each district, saving one level of games at the bi-district level, and, let the two divisions have their own state champions. Since one level of playoff games would be eliminated, the two division winners could play each other for the Class championship and let the big school / small school debate be settled on the field.

This would allow schools like Osawatomie to feel more competitive on a week in week out basis, and relieve some of the pressure on the smaller schools to make tough choices like the Trojans had to when they left the Frontier League for the Pioneer League. The choice between season long competitiveness won out over the chance of an intermittent run at a state playoff game. In essence, the Trojans had to choose over winning games on a regular basis, thereby allowing their student athletes to see a winning record, while running the risk of being under prepared for state level competition, or playing up in a league comprised of bigger schools, not winning many games, and, while better prepared, not making it beyond the district level either.

It’s not fair, and schools shouldn’t have to choose, Osawatomie did, and no one can fault them for it. As for the situation which occurred last Friday night, sure the Trojans came in unbeaten, but the state ranking? Well, anyone who follows football at all had to know the Trojans at 6-0 are not the same as say Louisburg or Paola at 6-0, or 5-1 or 4-2 for that matter.

That’s kind of the problem with “rankings” at the high school level. All too often, the rankings are done by people who just don’t know what’s going on all across the state. With 360 school in six classifications, it’s impossible for one person, or, say a newspaper, to know what each team is doing, who they’ve played and what their competition level is.

Many times it’s a matter of looking at records and figuring that six games in, if a team has not been beaten, then they have to be a powerhouse. In this case, its kind of the opposite of Baldwin. The Bulldogs did not win a game in their first six tries, really not even close, in fact, they even lost to Ottawa, which hadn’t won a game in their previous 33 tries.

But the Bulldogs won their first district game, and will probably win tonight, and that’s it, regardless of what they do next week, they’ll move on to play again, with a 2-7 or 3-6 record. The Trojans, on the other hand will probably lose tonight, and then regardless of what they do next week against Prairie View, will be done, with a fine 7-2 record. They’ll have a Pioneer League Championship, but other teams will keep playing and the Trojans will stay home. That’s not fair, but it is the hand that has been dealt, and as I’ve told my kids hundreds of times, “Life is not fair.”

Splitting Class 4-A into two division is a simple, clean and effective way to solving this glaring deficiency, and it could easily be done for next year with a simple re-alignment of districts. Of course, that won’t happen, but it should be done by the time the district assignments are made again in 2012-2013.

Then the “small school” 4A schools won’t have to complain about having to take on their “big school” cousins within the same class. The only problem then will be that the “small schools” will have to deal with will be the Holton Wildcats. The Brooks Barta coached Wildcats are a perennial Class 4A power, at any level, would be firmly entrenched in the middle of the pack in Division 2!

Class 4A Needs to Change (Part 1 of 2)

2010-10-21T14:43:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted Friday, October 23, 2009

I guess I ruffled some feathers, (or some other sort of cliché) with our brethren to the south with some of my comments following the Paola/Osawatomie game last Friday night.

First, let me say, if I offended, by saying the truth, then there’s not much I can say. If I offended by the way I stated the truth, then I am sorry, and I should have been better at saying what I said.

The truth about what happened at Paola last week is, the Trojans came into the game with an undefeated record, and ranked fifth in the state and got beat, plain and simple. No one got lucky, there wasn’t a bad bounce of the ball, or a touchdown called back on a phantom holding penalty, or any one or a thousand different circumstances that could cause one team to win and the other to feel cheated. None of that happened. The Panthers and Trojans lined up and the Panthers were the best, plain and simple, end of discussion.

How the two teams arrived at this point in the road is open for discussion though. I had a nice conversation with Osawatomie High School Principal Doug Chisam today, and I must say, he makes some valid points.

Now, Doug and I go way back, and we’ve know each other for a long time, and we’ve had plenty of discussions about a wide range of topics. He called me to give me the Osawatomie side of the argument, mainly to do with why the Trojans left the Frontier League and why they have lobbied to be removed from their current district assignment with Paola and Louisburg.

What it all boils down to is this, and it’s not a Paola vs. Osawatomie thing. It doesn’t go all the way back to the civil war days. It’s not any of those old Paola vs Osawatomie, bad blood things. No, at least for football in this day and age, those hard feelings are gone. I guess it’s only guys like me, like I said, I NEVER beat the Trojans at football, and registered only a couple of wins in basketball in my high school career. To me Paola vs. Osawatomie is a BIG deal. But I guess I’m just living in the past, ‘cause to todays generation it’s not.

No, ask a Paola kid who their biggest rival is today and they’d probably tell you Louisburg, at least in football. Ask an Osawatomie kid and they’d tell you Anderson County, or maybe even Central Heights.

Why, you ask, it’s not because we’re all over all those things that made us rivals in the past, no, it’s because we’ve outgrown each other. An herein lies the root of the problem, Kansas Class 4A is too big for it’s own good.

Now the class is no bigger than any other, but the problem lies, not in the number of schools (64) but the disparity of enrollment of the schools (532-199). This is where the ultimate problem lies, and there’s no easy way to fix it. But all one has to do is look at the next two smallest classes to see why the Trojans (and a whole bunch of other schools) find it so difficult to compete on a game to game basis in many of the leagues and districts around the state. In Class 3A there’s the same number of schools (64) but the enrollment between the largest school (198) and the smallest (122) is only 76 students, a far cry from the 316 from top to bottom in 4A! The enrollment gap in 2A is even smaller (119-75) or 44 students.

When one looks at the pecking order in the class, you can see why the Trojans (and many other schools) have such a difficult time. Paola is the sixth largest school in the class with 492 students in grades 10-12. Louisburg sits closer to the middle (approximately 29th) with 378. Osawatomie is also near the middle, (approximately 38th) but nearly 100 students LESS than Louisburg at 275 and over 200 LESS than Paola.

So the real problem lies with the 4A Classification. There’s too big of a range of students from top to bottom, and it’s always going to be that way because of the way the state divides its schools. The top 32 schools in enrollment comprise class 6A, the next 64 are 5A, then 4A and on down the line, with the remaining 100 or so schools that play 8 man football. The big schools can hold their own against each other, and the small schools are grouped tightly together in enrollment. It’s the 4A class, the middle class if you will that struggles.

In part 2, I’ll suggest one way Class 4A could be changed to make things easier on the “small schools”.

Rivalry Needs Competition

2010-10-21T14:42:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted Monday, October 19, 2009

In my last couple of posts, I’ve complained a bit about what I see is the impending doom of the Paola/Osawatomie football game, a game which has been played continuously since 1920 and which has added to the rich history of the two communities.

The Tom-Tom game was played again last Friday night, and for the first time in a long time, it looked like the Trojans might have a chance against the Panthers. As it turned out, they didn’t, and once again the Trojan faithful left a game with the Panthers on the short end of the score.

For the 92nd time the rivalry game was played, and as I have said before, it looks like the days of a Paola/Osawatomie football game are numbered. The Trojans want out, and for a long time, I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to kill a rivalry as old and storied as the Panthers and the Trojans.

Well, I started looking at the scores of the game for the past few years and it became abundantly clear why the Osawatomie faithful want out of this game in the worst way!

It’s really quite simple, it takes competition to fuel a rivalry, and for the last 30 years, at least two generations of Trojan players and fans, there has been no competition.

I looked at the last 30 years including Friday’s 54-6 thrashing of the previously unbeaten Trojans and the numbers are a stark indication of how far the Osawatomie football program has fallen since it’s glory year of 1973 when they brought home the Kansas State 3-A football championship.

In that 30 year time period, the Trojans have won exactly seven times and five of those victories came in a seven year period from 1985 through 1991. Since a 20-6 victory in 1991, the Trojans have managed two, two point wins in 1997 and 2004. In fact, the 1991 victory was the only time in those seven wins that the Trojans were victorious by more than a touchdown. Five of the Trojans seven wins were by four points or less, so the record could have been a lot worse. The Trojans have one shut-out victory in the last 30 years, a nail biting 3-0 win in 1986, and had held the Panthers to one touchdown or less only one other time during that span.

By contrast, the Panthers have posted five shutouts, and have held the Trojans to one touchdown or less twelve more times in the same time period.

The Trojans average margin of victory in the seven games -- 22-17. The Panthers had a stretch between the 1991 loss and a 26-24 loss in 1997 where the Trojans scored a TOTAL of 20 points and were outscored 164-20.

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit that I am wrong, as much as I hate to admit it, maybe this game should die, along with the rivalry. The rivalry is already dead, because there is no competition between the two teams. This year the Trojans are fielding their best team in many years and they just got it handed to them Friday night.

It really pains me to say this too, because I played in the game when it was a rivalry, when it meant something, and it still makes me mad that in three years of varsity football, I NEVER beat the Trojans, in fact, in my entire football career at Paola High School, freshman, junior varsity and varsity, I NEVER beat the Trojans. But that was back when it was a game, a happening, it was the last game of the season for both teams, and you could make or break your season by a win or a loss.

It’s just not like that anymore. People don’t care as much, because there’s just not a much riding on the game anymore. To the Panthers, it’s just another game, another stepping stone on their way to a state championship dream. To the Trojans, it’s another loss, but at least with the current league alignment, the Trojans can celebrate an unbeaten Pioneer League Championship!

Rivalry's Days are Numbered

2010-10-21T14:40:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted Thursday, October 15, 2009

When the Paola Panthers and Osawatomie Trojans meet on the gridiron in Paola for the millionth time tomorrow night, I don’t think the casual fan will take into consideration that this rivalry game is probably going to end, and that end is in the not too distant future.

Paola continues to hover near the top of the list of largest 4-A schools in the state. A population boost in the next two years might move them up on classification and that move alone would kill the game.

The Panthers and Trojans will meet for two more years, in 2010 and 2011, as the two teams are assigned to the same district for 4-A football in those two years, but, the district changed for the coming two year period, Prairie View moved out, and Spring Hill moved in, and, I’ve been told the Trojans lobbied, and lobbied HARD to be moved out of the district instead of Prairie View.

If that would have occurred, the Tom-Tom game tomorrow would have been the last, because, from what I have been told, the Trojans would not have scheduled Paola as a non-league game.

I’m not really sure why the Trojans are so dead set in seeing this rivalry die, but should it end, it would be a truly unfortunate thing for Kansas High School Football.

Talk to any of the “old timers” and they’ll tell of riding the train between towns on Thanksgiving Day to watch the Paola/Osawatomie game. Families planned their holiday dinners around the game, it was a BIG deal.

Look back at the game, see the names who have played in it, the Osawatomie field is named after one participant, Lynn Dickey, maybe the most famous of all participants. But there have been others, Brian Shay, is another name that comes to mind.

I even played in one of the best Paola/Osawatomie games of all time (at least in my humble opinion), in 1973. That year, the game was played in Paola. The Panthers were ranked fourth in the state, undefeated, 7-0. We had allowed 25 points on defense TOTAL for the season, including a run of over 20 consecutive quarters of scoreless ball. The Trojans were 7-0, ranked second in the state, and were just as stout as we were. Offensively, the Trojans featured Derrick Jensen, a converted center, who rushed for over 2,000 yards that season.

When I came to the stadium to dress, nearly two hourse before game time, the bleachers were already FILLED to capacity. By game time it was estimated the crowd was over 5,000 and ringed the field over 10 deep in many places.

The Trojans got the best of us that night, 34-8, but the score was 14-8 until late in the third quarter, when a could of turnovers cost us a run at the game.

That game was for the right to go to the state playoffs, there was no district winner or runner-up, it was win and you’re in, lose and you’re 7-1 and starting to practice basketball. The Trojans won, and went onto win the state championship. I’m convinced that the state championship was played that Halloween night in 1973 on the field at Panther Stadium. I really think that if Paola had won, it would have been the Panthers hoisting the State Championship trophy.

My point is, why would anyone want this storied rivalry to die?

Someone has to do something to keep these two teams playing each other beyond the 2011 matchup.

League's Need to Change

2010-10-21T14:38:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted Friday, October 9, 2009

Now that the Gardner-Edgerton High School Farewell to Frontier League Football tour is coming to an end, with the Trailblazers owning a 6-0 lead, having outscored their smaller school brethren by an average of 51-7, the Frontier League will need to address it’s status beginning in the 2010-2011 school year.

Does the league want to operate as a seven team league, or does another school need to be added?

With the release of the new football district assignments for 2010 and 2011, the question is sure to be raised, “Why does Osawatomie play in the Pioneer League?”

We’ll see over the next couple of weeks if the Trojans move to the Pioneer League was a help or a hindrance when it comes to competitiveness at the state level in football.

Sure, the Trojans will enter district play with an impressive 6-0 record (barring a major upset tonight against Central Heights), but how will the Trojans fare against Paola and Louisburg, who have been battle tested against the likes of Gardner, Eudora, and each other, while the Trojans have played Central Heights, Jayhawk Linn and Prairie View, who for the most part could not punch their way out of a paper bag?

If the Trojans roll into Paola in a week and defeat the Panthers and then play tough against the Wildcats, then the move to the easier Pioneer League will be a moot point. But, if, as I expect, the Trojans struggle against the Panthers and Wildcats, and lose both those games and miss out on post season play, then what good will the glossy unbeaten Pioneer League record be?

The Trojans need to come back to the Frontier League, they need to play with the “big boys” if they want to be a viable force when post season football rolls around. With the change in district assignments for the next two years, (Spring Hill will move into the district, and Priaire View will move out) it is a logical time for the Trojans to come back to the Frontier League where they belong.

There's Nothing Like the View from the Cheap Seats

2010-10-21T14:36:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted Tuesday, October 6, 2009

“There’s nothing like the view from the cheap seats,” or so says the line from the hit Alabama song by the same name. Well, when it comes to covering sports in general and high school sports specifically, there really is nothing like the view from the “cheap” seats.

We sports nuts that have made it our life’s work to follow high school sports might have our sanity called into question more than once in our careers. Sure, we get the “good spots” right on the side line, right there by the “action”. But have you ever stopped to think what we go through sometimes to be right by the “action.”

My good friend, Gene Morris, longtime sports editor for the Miami Republic has been run over several times by out of control linemen in football, he’s take shots from errant volleyballs, he’s been run into on the baseline of basketball games, and has taken a line drive to the head at a baseball game.

Now I haven’t had nearly the adventures as Gene has had, I like to think that I’m a little more athletic than he is and have just been able to get out of the way, but it’s probably a matter that he’s been at it longer than I have and the law of averages just hasn’t caught up with me. But, I’ve had my share of close calls and near injuries.

But, the point is, we subject ourselves to this torture for the sake of following and reporting on the kids and their accomplishments. That’s what it all boils down to, in the end, after all the second guessing of coaches, the criticism of the officials, and all the other jawing that goes on at a sporting event, it’s all about the kids.

That’s why we fill those cheap seats, which really aren’t seats at all. We stand for hours at football games, we sit on the baseline at basketball games, we kneel on the mezzanine of high school gyms for hours at volleyball tournaments, we hike to find the right spot to shoot a cross country runner, and we stand in foul territory of a baseball game, just waiting to take a line drive off the head, all to get that just right picture, and be in the “action” so we can tell the story of the kids we cover.

Come to think of it, there’s really NOTHING like the view from the cheap seats, and right now, I wouldn’t trade if for anything. I hope you like my thoughts now and in the future, come back often, read what I write, and if you like it, drop me a note and tell me so. If you don’t like it . . . well tell me that too!

Right now, I’ve got to go, there’s a cheap seat out there with my name on it!

Mother Nature Won

2010-10-21T14:17:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted -- Saturday, September 13, 2008

Well, it was a battle of man against nature Friday night, as the Panthers battled the Ottawa Cyclones in a driving rain storm. Thank goodness the game was played on Field Turf at Ottawa University, had that not been the case, the Panthers white away uniforms would have looked like the all black home unis rather quickly. The Panthers are learning quickly this year that the turnover can make or break a game. In their season opening loss to Baldwin the Panthers gave the ball away five times, losing 21-7. Against Ottawa, the Panthers again had a hard time holding on to the ball, but with the conditions, that was to be expected. Ottawa had a little more trouble keeping the pigskin in their possession, and Paola quickly built a 14-0 lead thanks to two turnovers and six yards of total offense. If the Panthers are going to be successful at all this year, they’re going to have to learn to maintain possession of the ball. We don’t have the offensive weapons to give the opponents extra possessions.

But overall, the real winner in this contest was Mother Nature, when the game is played in those kind of conditions, it’s hard to maintain and semblance of offensive or defensive consistency. Plus, it’s hard for all the others on the sidelines too! We put our camera away at half time -- and taking notes on a game is next to impossible. The stats crew improvised with ponchos and trash bags -- one even went an spent the second half in the press box! The only good thing that we could say was, “at least it’s not cold!”

Panthers Are Winners

2010-10-21T14:15:00.001-07:00

Originally Posted Saturday, September 20, 2008

When one looks at the picture above it will be easy to question the outcome of tonight’s Paola Panther/Gardner Edgerton football game. Sure, the Trailblazers won on the scoreboard, taking a hard fought 21-14 victory over the Panthers.

It will be easy to complain about the obvious missed call on fourth and one that gave the Blazers a touchdown and the final margin of victory when the photos that Gene Morris and I got at the goal line clearly show that the Gardner runner didn’t break the plane of the goal line with the ball. His head crossed the line, but that’s it, the ball stayed tightly clutched to his chest, which, by the way, didn’t come close to the goal.

Sure, it will be easy to cry foul, or say “we got robbed,” but why? What good will it do? Coach Mike Dumpert summed it up best, while addressing a disappointed Panther squad in the locker room after the game. “This opportunity is past,” Dumpert said. “The only thing we are guaranteed is nine games, and three of them are gone. All we can do now is be ready for the next game, because there are no second chances.”

Coach is right, you don’t get second chances, but the Panthers showed us all something tonight. They showed the making of a champion. The played with a toughness and determination that we haven’t seen in a while. They showed heart, and those of us that were in the locker room after the game saw that this game hurt. But many times, hurt is a good thing, lets hope that the Panthers learn from this experience and carry this progress on to the rest of the season.

On a lighter note . . . Coach Dumpert celebrated his 50th birthday on Friday. While visiting with coach following the game he closed his comments by saying “It would have been nice to win that one,” he said with a rye smile. “That would have been about the best 50th birthday present I could have asked for.” Maybe next time Coach!