ASHLEY KRAFT
A couple of ladies picked up the slack in the MIAA and the KCAC this week, with Pittsburg State’s Deprice Taylor winning MIAA player of the week honors and Sterling’s Ashley Kraft receiving the same award in the KCAC.
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CALEB WALKER -- AS ADVERTISED
I’m not surprised the Butler men beat Hutch … okay maybe a little surprised. What blows me away is that Hutch’s Darius Johnson-Odom was held to six points. SIX POINTS! Dude was leading the Jayhawk in scoring. And they lost by 26? And that’s the team that was picked to win the west? My guy at the game said the Blue Dragons seemed disinterested in this one. Hutch underperformed last year with uber-rapper/point guard/Jayhawk POY/”The Solution” Bobby Maze, who is now at Tennessee, and Ken Bowman (who signed with Maryland but isn’t on their roster) and a loss like this … not a good sign of things to come. But props to Hutch native Caleb Walker for locking down DJO and hitting for 29. Not bad when he’d only scored 38 points so far this season before the Blue Dragons came to town.
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STEPHEN WILLIAMS
Take a couple of days off to go skiing at the west side Palace resort and everybody forgets you exist…
Bob Lutz wrote a nice column today on the Newman-Friends basketball rivalry, which has ceased to exist in no small part because of Newman’s move to a full-fledged NCAA Division II school. So here’s a question: If Newman can play Bethel, Tabor and Sterling, then why not Friends? Discuss amongst yourselves.
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MARK POTTER
Newman men’s head basketball coach Mark Potter got his 200th win on Saturday night against York College in Wichita. Potter’s been the face of the Jets since the school resurrected its program 11 years ago, and he was a stud basketball and baseball player there in the mid-1980s (ed. note: any pictures from this era will go directly up on this blog)
Congratulations to Coach Potter, here’s the link to KSN’s Mark Davidson breaking down the game for you:
http://www.ksn.com/sports/36113519.html
And here’s the release from Newman SID Brian Petrotta, who is always on top of things:
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Newly-minted Newman University athletic director Vic Trilli was kind enough to sit down with Sunflower Slate for a Q&A last week, and while he’s adjusting to his move from Garden City — where he was the Garden City Community College AD since 2005 — to Wichita just fine, there’s still a few loose ends that needed to be tied up in Western Kansas before he can set up roots here. I had the opportunity to cover a Trilli-led athletic department for the better part of two seasons when I was with the Garden City Telegram, so there’s a little history there between us, which of course makes him a Sunflower Slate favorite. He’s also got big-time experience; he was the men’s basketball coach at North Texas and an assistant at the University of Texas before getting into an administration role.
Vic Trilli, Newman AD
Here’s some excerpts from our interview:
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There were a couple of big upsets in state college sports Friday and none bigger than the one right here in the Air Capitol by the newly-minted NCAA Division II Newman Jets, who defeated No. 7-ranked Drury University 3-2. Much props to Brian Alvarez, a fellow Wichita Northwest graduate who scored one of Newman’s three goals. He gets his picture on this blog right here, right now, because he’s a Grizzly. And he’s a pretty good soccer player. But more because he’s a Grizzly.
Brian Alvarez, Newman
Newman SID Brian Petrotta wrote a great story on the game.
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Props to Newman’s Nick May — A Kechi native — on his big win Tuesday at the SMUBWMI on Tuesday in Austin. Nothing like a great win at the SMUBWMI. And no, the tournament’s name isn’t SMUBWMI, it’s just short for its ridiculously long proper name.
Here’s the release from Newman SID Bryan Petrotta, who is doing a heckuva job in his new role in Wichita. And when I say he’s doing a heckuva job I don’t mean like this. That’s definitely somebody who wasn’t doing a good job.
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Just a few thoughts after a long night spent pouring over gamers out of our MIAA, KCAC and Jayhawk schools.
MIAA
Biggest surprise, by far, was Fort Hays State pulling off the upset over No. 18 Washburn in Hays. You had to think the Tigers would be up, and feeling underestimated after basically giving away the game with turnovers and penalties in a loss to Colorado Mines last week. Jacob Irvin ran wild for Fort Hays with 157 yards rushing. Read More »
Welcome to Sunflower Slate, The Wichita Eagle’s blog for state college and junior college sports.
To break it down, here’s what this pertains to — anything and everything to do with the KCAC, MIAA, Heart of America, and Jayhawk Conference.
Please consider this a fluid concept, too. And it’s not just for football and basketball, either, although that will definitely play a big part in it.
I’ve got a pretty good grasp of what’s going on in the state right now in this arena — but there’s always somebody or some team somewhere that’s doing something great and flying under the radar, and that’s what I’m looking for.
Here’s my e-mail: tadame@wichitaeagle.com, and here’s my office phone:316-268-6284. Feel free to call anytime.
Let’s do this!
-Tony Adame
