RONNIE WEST
Apologies for my absence — I’ve been gone the last 3 weeks as part of The Eagle’s NCAA Tournament coverage team, which we all know by now took a pretty wild turn when Wichita State ended up in the Final Four for the first time since 1965. I spent a week in Kansas City with K-State and KU, the next week in Dallas with KU and finally to Atlanta with the Shockers.
But now I’m back, so let’s take a look at some of what I missed while I was gone:
BRANDON BROWN
Tabor College defensive lineman Brandon Brown was found beaten, unconscious and unresponsive outside of a house party in McPherson in the early-morning hours of Sept. 16. He died six days later in a Wichita hospital and two former McPherson College football players have been charged with murder in the case. An eyewitness account of that night paints a gruesome picture.
(PHOTO BY BO RADER/THE WICHITA EAGLE)
2. Butler football loses in NJCAA title game
Butler Community College’s football team lost in the NJCAA championship game for the second time in three years, falling 27-7 to Iowa Western in the Graphic Edge Bowl in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The Grizzlies didn’t have arguably their top offensive player in West Virginia-bound running back Dreamius Smith (broken collarbone), and starting quarterback Billy Cosh was knocked out on the final play of the first half while trying to make a touchdown-saving tackle … but I’m not sure having both of them for the entire game would’ve mattered. This was the Reivers’ year.
3. McPherson’s historic run to the NAIA D2 Final Four
Sometimes, a good coach does make all the difference. In four years, McPherson College men’s coach Tim Swartzendruber has engineered one of the most amazing runs in KCAC history and made it all the way to the NAIA Division II Final Four this year, where the Bulldogs fell to Northwood (Fla.) and former Villanova coach Rollie Massimino. Swartzendruber’s teams have been to the NAIA Tournament three years in a row, a first in KCAC history.
4. Cowley volleyball comes up short in bid for back-to-back national titles
The Cowley volleyball team entered the NJCAA Division II championship game 38-0 and the defending national champion but lost to Grand Rapids 25-20, 25-23, 26-24. Cowley has two national runner-ups and one title in four years under coach Jennifer Bahner.
5. Blue Dragon women fall in NJCAA championship game
For some reason, this was the year that teams from Kansas kept coming up short – specifically three from the Jayhawk Conference that made it to national championship games before losing. In another incredible twist, Butler football, Cowley volleyball and Hutchinson women’s basketball were all undefeated before their losses in the title game. The Blue Dragons, coached by John Ontjes, were 36-0 before losing to top-seeded Trinity Valley in Salina.
Newman women’s basketball coach Jaime Green’s incredibly successful – and controversial – two-year stint as the women’s basketball coach of the Jets came to an end when she surprised Newman athletic director Vic Trilli with her resignation in March in order to take a job as an assistant coach at her alma mater, Missouri Southern. The Jets eventually hired former New Mexico State coach Darrin Spence to take over for Green.
In a big, big way – $12 million well spent. The opening of BG Products Veterans Sports Complex in El Dorado ended a decade-long saga of a town and a school fighting over how to showcase their most bankable product — the Butler Community College football team. With Coffeyville’s Veterans Memorial Stadium and Hutchinson’s Gowans Stadium also housing teams in the Jayhawk, you have a league with facilities that rival most NCAA Division II conferences.
8. Cordarrelle Patterson signs with Tennessee
Former Coffeyville football coach Dick Foster coached the only Heisman Trophy winner ever to come out of the Jayhawk Conference — Nebraska running back Mike Rozier — and even he thought Patterson might be the best player to ever come out of the celebrated junior-college league. The Hutchinson Community College wide receiver/returner is likely headed to the NFL after one season at Tennessee.
Even in the Jayhawk, where schools pump out D1 and NFL players ever year, Patterson’s recruitment was a wild ride.
One of the more controversial rule changes to hit Jayhawk football in recent memory came when the league decided to include taxi squads to their rosters this year, meaning each of the eight schools could keep four extra out-of-state players on the roster to play in non-conference and bowl games … and making the 12 out-of-staters that school’s have had to traditionally pick before the season and stick with even through injuries a flexible thing – coaches could change out those spots week-to-week.
10. Pittsburg State’s collapse
What in the world happened to the Gorillas? The defending NCAA Division II football champions were ranked No. 1 into the middle of October and then…
What will become of the senior year for John Brown and Nate Dreiling, two almost sure-fire PSU Hall of Famers? I can’t wait to find out.
TA
CRAIG NICHOLSON (FHSU PHOTO)
Lots of stuff going on over the weekend – thought this might be a good primer to show you a few of the highlights:
-Newman is 8-0: The Newman men improved to 8-0 over the weekend, setting up a big, big game Saturday in Wichita against No. 2 Washburn. The Jets beat William Jewell on Saturday night 86-84 behind some late-game heroics from senior guard Bobby Wesley, who scored 7 points … with 5 coming in the last two minutes on a three-pointer and a 12-foot jumper with 2.5 seconds left that won the game.
-Ryan Schraeder: The former Butler Community College All-American offensive tackle is back playing for the national championship – this time on the NCAA Division II level with Valdosta State. The Blazers beat Minnesota State-Mankato 35-19 on Saturday in Mankato, and will face Winston-Salem State for the title. More good news for Schraeder – he was named a D2 1st team All-American for the second time and he had a feature written about him in the Wichita Eagle. Schraeder is moving up draft boards as we speak – here’s a link to his Twitter account @RyanSchraeder78 – Pittsburg State wide receiver John Brown and former Washburn cornerback Pierre Desir, now at Lindenwood, were also named to the first team.
-Craig Nicholson turning heads: Northwest product and Fort Hays State freshman point guard Craig Nicholson was named the MIAA player of the week on Monday (not the weekend, I know), but the 5-foot-8 playmaker is already showing that the Tigers scored a coup in signing him.
-And there’s Hutch: The Hutchinson Community College men’s basketball team improved to 14-0 over the weekend and are ranked No. 4 in the country. Brad Hallier of The Hutch News breaks it down for you.
Talk to you soon -TA
SHAMAR ACUAY
We put out our college basketball preview on Sunday, including features and capsules on the MIAA, KCAC, Jayhawk Conference and Newman. Here’s links to our stories and capsules plus a few behind-the-scenes bits on each story – click the name of the league for the jump to capsules – Newman women are a folo on the main feature:
Eagle staff
Wichita State’s Geoffrey Young and Newman’s Georgia Drewes won titles at the USBC Intercollegiate Singles Championships on Saturday in Lincoln, Neb.
The WSU men lost in the final of the Team Championships, falling to Webber International 2 1/2 – 1/2. Webber won the best-of-3 series 179-167, 203-203, 194-184.
In the men’s singles final, Young beat Midland’s Joe Steiner 245-191. Young opened with strikes in six of the first seven frames.
“This is unbelievable because not in a million years did I think singles would be on TV, and I would be the one winning it all,” Young was quoted as saying at Bowl.com. “I was pretty nervous at first, but I calmed down and focused on what I needed to do.”
The event will by shown on tape on CBS Sports Network on May 4.
Young rolled a 242 in the semifinals to beat Calumet’s Anthony Fiorenzo.
Drewes beat Nebraska’s Elise Bolton 204-147 in the final, She reached the final by beating WSU’s Jazreel Tan 226-207 in the semifinals.
“I was more nervous when I was on the practice lanes, and I actually thought I would be sickly nervous when I got on the lanes, but it wasn’t too bad,” Drewes said. “My heart was beating pretty fast, but I just kept to my routine.”
DARIN SPENCE
By TONY ADAME
The Wichita Eagle
Newman has hired former New Mexico State and Barton Community College coach Darin Spence as its new women’s basketball program.
The school announced the hiring of Spence on Thursday afternoon.
Spence went 18-13 at Barton this season, his only year in Great Bend. He went 109-136 in eight years at New Mexico State.
Spence replaces Jaime Green at Newman after Green resigned earlier this month after two seasons to take an assistant coach position at Missouri Southern. Green led the Jets to their first NCAA Tournament berth and a Heartland Conference title this season.
Spence has extenive ties to Kansas – he began his coaching career at his alma mater, Marymount College in Salina, in 1987, then spent five seasons as the women’s coach at Butler Community College, two seasons as an assistant men’s coach at Cowley, two seasons as the men’s coach at Colby Community College and five seasons as the women’s coach at Cowley, where he won five Jayhawk East titles.
Spence’s best season at New Mexico State came in 2009-2010, when he went 25-9 and led the Aggies to the Women’s NIT.
“Darin will be an absolute great fit for Newman University,” Newman athletic director Vic Trilli said in a statement. “He has had success at every level of college basketball, including eight years (at Division I). He brings an experience factor and big-time family values that will provide some stability to our program.”
Reach Tony Adame at tadame@wichitaeagle.com or 316-268-6284.
KYLE BURKHARDT
Here’s my feature on the Newman University baseball team from Kansas.com – it will run in Thursday’s Eagle. Interesting to watch the evolution of this team over the last two years under coach Zane Ehling, a Hutch native who also played for Butler Community College and Newman. Ehling’s grass-root recruiting efforts are paying big dividends for the Jets – 26 of the 32 players on the Newman roster have Kansas connections either via high school, the Jayhawk Conference or both. And their top guys – pitchers Brandon Droge (Topeka Hayden/Johnson CC), Kyle Burkhardt (Topeka Highland Park/Highland CC) and catcher Ruben Marrero (Cowley) are all prime examples of that.
The Jets have a home game next Tuesday against Emporia State that should draw a pretty big crowd to McCarthy Field – where fans, for the first time, have real bleachers to sit in.
Also, here’s an article by Eagle correspondent Paige Feikert on the Newman women’s bowling team heading to the national tournament.
TA
Amazing stuff from the Newman women’s basketball team – lose their best player in the first game of the year and then this …
Newman’s Alex Adekunle scored 30 points and grabbed 11 rebounds as the Jets rallied from 13 points down in the second half to beat Texas-Permian Basin 84-81 in Odessa, Texas, and clinch at least a share of the Heartland Conference women’s title in a battle of the league’s two first-place teams.
It’s the first women’s crown for the Jets since moving up to NCAA Division II.
Newman was playing without two injured starters in Bobbi Coleman and leading scorer Philicia Kelly.
“We worked pretty hard to get back in this one,” said Newman first-year coach Jaime Green. “The players are the ones that have to execute, though. Us coaches are just along for the ride.”
Tasha Cannon added 26 points and nine rebounds for the Jets. Celeste Key added 10 points and point guard Rhea Codio had 14 points and six assists.
“I thought Rhea did a great job of keeping us focused when we got down,” Green said.
The Jets improved to 18-7 overall and 8-1 in Heartland play. Newman’s final regular-season game is Thursday at Oklahoma Panhandle State in Goodwell, Okla., where they can clinch the title outright with a victory and the top seed in the league tournament.
“I’m a competitor so I’d rather win it straight out and be conference champs and then also win the conference tournament,” Green said. “I was really proud of our kids today.”
CHIP STEVEN
It was a huge week for the Newman men’s and women’s basketball teams, with both Jet squads going 2-0 in a crucial stretch of the season. The women have been pretty steady throughout league play, but the men really struggled at the start of the season and have found a way to turn things around. Tremendous work by Mark Potter and Jaime Green. Not to mention both teams also beat St. Mary’s on Monday.
And there’s some side perks, too, with men’s player Chip Steven being named the Heartland Conference player of the week and Newman’s Tasha Cannon picking up the same award for the women.
Steven, a Derby native who played at Barton CC before coming to Newman, scored 19 points in a win over Arkansas-Fort Smith and then went 11 for 11 from the free-throw line and scored 28 points in a win over first-place Texas A&M-International. Cannon, a junior transfer from Coffeyville CC, had 19 points and 16 rebounds in a win over Arkansas-Fort Smith (triple overtime win, that is) and then hit TAMI for 26 points in another win. She’s averaging 13.7 points and 8.6 rebounds this year.
The Jets will spend pretty much all tomorrow on the road, I’m guessing, to make it to Austin, Texas, for Thursday’s game against St. Edward’s. The men are currently in second place in the HC, and the women are tied for first.
TA
TASHA CANNON
Big things going on at Newman tomorrow – the Jets’ women’s team takes on St. Edward’s at 12:30 p.m. in a nationally-televised game on CBS College Sports Network.
That’s Ch. 260 on Cox, Ch. 613 on DirecTV and Ch. 152 on Dish. Admission is free, which is awesome, and the first 1,500 fans get a free red t-shirt.
Still, there’s more. Newman is hosting a party at 10:30 AM that’s also free to the public.
The Jets are 11-7 overall and 2-1 in Heartland Conference play – in second after last night’s loss to Texas-Permian Basin – and have a really nice team. Here’s an article I wrote that came out Tuesday about their hot start and some of the adversity the Jets and first-year coach Jaime Green have dealt with this year. Newman has 3 big-time players in Tasha Cannon, Rhea Codio and Philicia Kelly that are all among the elite players in the Heartland right now. St. Edward’s has opened 1-2 in Heartland play.
I’m also pretty sure this guy will be there tomorrow, too. I’m working on a story for tomorrow’s paper on the game and hopefully it’ll be up tonight online … (UPDATE) and here it is.
TA
