The Lawrence Lions jumped out to a 27-14 first quarter lead and never trailed enroute to a 78-41 victory over the Junction City Blue Jays in boys basketball Friday night.

Four players scored in double figures for Lawrence. They were led by guard Ben Rajewski, who hit five three point shots and finished with 18 points for the Lions.    Danny Thornton led Junction City with 8 points, while Jonathan Wilds and Jake Adkins had seven points apiece for the Blue Jays.

Junction City coach Pat Battle said Lawrence shot the ball well early in the game. “We missed some easy opportunities early and then missed some free throws, went 2 for 9 from the free throw line in the first half.” Battle added from there things snowballed and the game got out of hand.

Junction City will begin preparing for two games next week…..Friday night at Great Bend and Saturday afternoon at Dodge City.

The Lady Jay basketball team opens their season Tuesday night at Lawrence.

The Kansas State Football team enjoyed some much needed time off this week before heading back to work Friday and Saturday for it’s fourth straight bowl game appearance.

Head Coach Bill Snyder addressed the fact that they are heading to a bowl game for the fourth straight year Thursday during his weekly press conference.

“I’m pleased certainly for the youngsters in our program and the people that work so hard and commit so much of their time, effort and emotions into this team. Certainly for the fan base, it is important to them, and they like that. For so many, it is the vacation time. I think it is meaningful in that respect,” Snyder said.

Which bowl game the Wildcats will end up at depends on the outcome of games on Saturday. Ryan Mueller, junior defensive end said that not knowing is definitely exciting.

“There is not a clear cut favorite – things could happen. I know that we will all be watching a lot of games this weekend because that can have an impact on where we go and who we could potentially play. So it is very exciting, and I am looking forward to hearing the results,” Mueller said.

K-State has not won a bowl game since 2002 when they beat Arizona State 34-27 in the Holiday Bowl.

Jonathan Truman, junior linebacker, said that the desperation to snap that losing streak is very high,”Nobody on our team has won a bowl game, with the exception of the coaches. We need it. We want it really bad.”

The Wildcats will find out their fate Sunday evening.

The Kansas State Wildcats never lead by more than five points and Ole Miss never lead by more than four in the inaugural Big 12/SEC Challenge.

The Wildcats took the lead early and seemed to never let it get to far out of their hands winning 61-58.

Bruce Weber, KSU Head Coach called the win huge, “It’s a huge win for us there’s no doubt. We didn’t play very well and I’m not sure we coached very well but we fought and toughed it out.”

Ole Miss took there final lead with 4:48 to play and stretched it to four 49-53 before the Wildcats surged back. Between Thomas Gipson and Marcus Foster the Wildcats were able to regain the lead for good.

K-State was led in scoring by Thomas Gipson and Marcus Foster who had 15 points each. Foster’s 3-point shot with 1:22 left in the game gave the Wildcats a four point lead. “It was a big shot knowing that my shot hadn’t really been falling from the three,” Foster said.

A missed 3-point shot with :03 seconds to play by Marshall Henderson, the stand out guard for Ole Miss, put the game in the hands of K-State. A foul on the rebound by Ole Miss sent Wesley Iwundu to the free throw line with :01 seconds left. Iwundu went 1-1 from the charity stripe and sealed the win for the Wildcats.

After the game Andy Kennedy, Ole Miss Head Coach, said that the students at K-State really impressed him.

“You guys are a little spoiled, we don’t see that very often. In our league obviously Kentucky you’re going to go there and play infront of 23,000 and you go to Arkansas and play in front of 18,000 but not like that. They were really into it. I thought it made for a very festive fun college environment,” Kennedy said.

Thursday night’s attendance was 11,990.

The Wildcats will play South Dakota next Tuesday at Bramlage Coliseum. That game is scheduled for a 7 p.m. tip.

The Blue – White basketball scrimmages for the Junction City Blue Jay and Lady Jay basketball teams took center stage at the Shenk Gym Tuesday night.

Blue Jay boys basketball coach Pat Battle came away pleased, but noted his team needs to do a better job of communicating on defense. There were things he liked. “We were a little bit skittish there at first. We were coming out, shooting a little bit too quickly but when they started to look inside that’s when opportunities really opened up for them. That’s really what we’ve got to be this year, a team that looks to go inside and then back outside.”

The Blue team consisting of first team varsity players and reserve j-v squad members defeated the White team of first team j-v players and reserve varsity players 49-48.

Battle expects Jonathan Wilds and Tanner Lueker to start at the guard spots, Danny Thornton on the wing, and Semaj Johnson in the post. The other spot is still unsettled.

The Blue Jays play at Lawrence on Friday night.

Following the Lady Jay scrimmage the head coach Nate Parks noted the strong play of Kori Kamm and Danielle Shane. “What I told the group if everybody had the effort of Dani, we’re going to be a team that’s hard to beat. ”

Parks saw his team go to the basket, shoot more, and get offensive rebounds…areas of emphasis for this team. “In the first and fourth quarter I think that showed. The score was close for a little bit, but the more aggressive that we were we were able to put more points up.”

The Lady Jays play their opener next Tuesday at Lawrence.

The Saint Xavier Middle School basketball teams defeated their counterparts from Flint Hills Christian Tuesday.

The Lady Rams defeated Flint Hills Christian 21-11, and the Saint X boys team were victorious 29-10.

Junction City Blue Jay wrestling coach Bob Laster says his team has a lot of work to do, but he came away happy from the team’s Blue – White scrimmage  at the Shenk Gym.

“One of the biggest things I notice is conditioning wise. I don’t think we’re in the type of condition that we need to be win. Otherwise I thought we looked pretty good technically.”

Junction City must prepare for their season opening double dual on Thursday at the Shenk Gym against Chapman and Clay Center.  He feels the Blue – White scrimmage is beneficial. “Yeah it is because it gives me an opportunity as well as the kids an opportunity to be in a real life like situation. ‘  Laster added having it under the lights and with an official provides a different experience than the wrestling practice room.

The Blue Jays do have one significant injury early in the season. Returning two-time state champion, Andrew Millsap broke a leg one week before the beginning of the season. He is expected to be able to resume competition sometime in January.

Junction City High School will serve as a host school for  Class 6A boys and girls substate basketball tournaments in early March.  

Final round games in the substates are played at the designated sites.

Junction City is paired in a group with seven other schools including Derby, Manhattan, Lawrence Free State, Topeka High, Washburn Rural, Wichita East and Wichita Southeast.  That group will be divided into two four-team substate brackets.

The tournaments will be played March 5-8.

The Saint Xavier Middle School basketball teams met Manhattan Luckey on Monday.

In the girls game Luckey was victorious 41-17, and in the boys game Saint X won 41-28.

 

Becky Steiger has been named the Girls Centennial League Cross Country Coach of the Year.

Steiger is the head coach for both the girls and boys cross country and track teams at Junction City High School.

Her selection as girls cross country coach of the year was announced by JCHS Athletic Director Matt Westerhaus.  The honor is voted upon by cross country coaches in the league.

 

By DAVE SKRETTA
AP Sports Writer
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) – Nobody was talking about bowl games at Kansas State in mid-October, when the Wildcats were sitting at 2-4 and feeling bruised and battered after a loss to Baylor.

Nobody was giving up on the season, either.

So with the kind of steadfast resolve that has become a hallmark under Bill Snyder, Kansas State flipped the script. The Wildcats ripped off four straight wins to become bowl eligible, and then finished off their regular-season with a 31-10 rout of Kansas on Saturday.

The most likely destination now is the Holiday Bowl, where the Wildcats are 3-0.

“You know, I’m proud of the fact that they’ve come back,” Snyder said Saturday, “that they didn’t give into it and move in a different direction.”

It could have easily happened.

There was the disheartening loss to North Dakota State on the same day the school dedicated a massive renovation to the stadium that bears Snyder’s name. There was the underwhelming performance at Texas, and the back-to-back losses to Oklahoma State and Baylor.

None of them were by more than 10 points. But not all of them were close, either.

Yet a team that had to replace nine starters on defense, not to mention Heisman Trophy finalist Collin Klein at quarterback, somehow managed to turn things around. Part of it had to do with the sagely Snyder, who usually knows how to pull the right strings. But a big part of it had to do with the simple stubbornness that comes from a program that’s grown accustomed to success.

“What we can take out of this is we never gave in,” wide receiver Tyler Lockett said. “We kept fighting back, fighting back, regardless of the close games we lost. We came back the next game.

“We have a great coaching staff,” Lockett added, “and they kept believing in us, and that’s all we needed. We just kept pushing and pushing.”

Now, the trick is to finally end a bowl-game losing streak. Kansas State has lost all three that it’s played since Snyder returned from a brief retirement, and five straight going all the way back to his first tenure. Ron Prince lost the only bowl game he coached in 2006.

Incidentally, the Wildcats’ last victory was in the 2002 Holiday Bowl.

“It’s an awesome feeling to be bowl-eligible again, but I haven’t won one since I’ve been here,” said wide receiver Tramaine Thompson, a senior. “I really want to go out with a bang.”

Quarterback Jake Waters, who split time with Daniel Sams most of the season, said there’s a feeling of confidence as the Wildcats begin their month-long bowl preparation. They may have lost to Oklahoma last week, but they rebounded nicely against the Jayhawks.

Running back John Hubert ran for a career-high 220 yards, Waters accounted for three touchdowns and a defense that went through quite the roller-coaster came up with six turnovers.

“We’re going into our bowl game with a win instead of two straight losses. That’s huge,” Waters said. “Then not playing as well as we want, that’s going to keep us hungry for bowl prep.”

Snyder shouldn’t have any problem with hunger.

Even as the marching band played the fight song and hundreds of Kansas State fans waited to celebrate a win over their rivals on Saturday, the 74-year-old coach stood in the shadows of the bleachers in Lawrence and lamented the many close calls of this season.

Yes, the Wildcats finished 7-5. But the defending Big 12 champs could have done so much better.

“It’s like it would be for anybody, what you really remember, you remember the losses,” Snyder said. “And the biggest margin was 10 points. There wasn’t a ballgame we played that we didn’t have our chances, so that’s the frustrating experience. One of our players said last night, they asked to define the season in one word, and one of the players said, ‘Frustrating.’

“It is, but it doesn’t take away from how much I appreciate the young people in our program.”

It also doesn’t take away from the way they kept fighting, either.