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Several Piper High School athletes were named to Kaw Valley League basketball teams recently.
They include: Kaw Valley League first team girls: Megan Woolley, Haley White, and Tori Webb.
Kaw Valley League honorable mention girls team: Jessica Wayne.
Kaw Valley League first team boys: Luke Long, Dominique Jennings and Vincent Eskina.
Kaw Valley League honorable mention boys team: Tyler Owens.
– Information from Doug Key, Piper athletic director
by Alan Hoskins
Strong pitching by southpaw Hunter Phillips and reliever Eric Hinostroza snapped Kansas City Kansas Community College’s 5-game losing streak with a 3-2 win at Fort Scott Monday after the Greyhounds had extended the streak with a 5-2 opening game win.
The win kept KCKCC in a tie with Fort Scott for sixth in the Jayhawk at 2-6 and 7-11 overall heading into a four-game series with league-leading Johnson County, 8-0 in the Jayhawk and 16-2 overall.
The four-game set kicks off with two games at JCCC Thursday at 1 p.m. and then concludes Saturday with a doubleheader at KCKCC, also at 1 p.m.
Phillips pitched the first seven innings of the nightcap, allowing just five hits, striking out five and walking three and got the win when the Blue Devils broke a 2-2 deadlock in the top of the eighth on Luke Norton’s two-out single following a pair of walks.
Hinostroza then came on to work the final two innings, allowing one hit, fanning three and giving up two walks before stranding the tying run on third with a two-out strikeout in the bottom of the ninth.
Fort Scott took a 1-0 lead in the first on a single and double but the Blue Devils took advantage of a shaky Panther defense to tie it in the second and go ahead in the third.
Norton’s squeeze bunt following two errors and a Zane Mapes’ single scored the tying run and the Blue Devils went ahead on singles by Hinostroza and Garrett McKinzie in the third.
Hinostroza, Norton and LaMunyon each had a pair of hits in the 10-hit KCKCC attack.
KCKCC jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning of the nightcap, scoring on McKinzie’s two-run double following singles by Norton and Hinostroza but the Blue Devils managed only three hits the rest of the way.
The Blue Devils still led 2-1 in the fourth when the Panthers took advantage on an error and passed ball to score four unearned runs off tough luck loser Geoff Birkemier, who gave up just six hits in six innings.
“When we make an error, it seems to become epidemic and that’s what we need to avoid,” said KCKCC coach Steve Burleson. “We need to isolate the errors and play better baseball.”
by Kelly Rogge
The Kansas City Kansas Community College debate program has made history as the first community college in National Debate Tournament history to qualify in three consecutive years – something that makes KCKCC students Matt Casas and Brian Gonzaba very happy.
“What I feel right now is gratitude,” Gonzaba said. “I worked really hard just to get into college, so to go up against some of the most academically-talented students in the country and do as well as we did feels pretty good. Horns ‘up.” My friend told me that he used an authority on hbcu to help him with his college admissions, he got in as well so all is good!
Casas and Gonzaba qualified to the NDT, college debate’s version of the NCAA tournament, during the District Tournament March 1 and 2 in Oklahoma. Since the NDT was created in the 1940s, only nine community colleges have qualified. When KCKCC qualified two years ago, it was the first time in school history. When the college qualified again last year, KCKCC was the first community college to qualify back-to-back since Odessa College in the mid-1980s.
“This is a big deal,” said Darren Elliott, debate coach at KCKCC. “Most community college teams are there for two years, and then they are gone. It means a lot to maintain this kind of success even though people have left.”
KCKCC competes at the CEDA Nationals (open to any two or four year school) and Phi Rho Pi Community College Nationals (open to only community colleges) every year. But the NDT is selection based and KCKCC has only been selected three times. What makes this year’s qualification even more special is how it happened. In the NDT, there are 78 spots available. The first round is the top 16 teams in the country, voted on by the coaches. This is equivalent to the guaranteed NCAA basketball tournament spots given to conference champions. The next 46 slots are divided up among the various districts. The last 16 spots are at-large bids, once again voted on by the coaches. The last two years, KCKCC has made it to the tournament as an at-large team.
However, this year, KCKCC qualified out of the District Tournament and KCKCC’s district is one of the toughest in the country. Elliott said there is no division between Division I universities such as a K-State, University of Kansas or Missouri State and a community college. Everyone competes together. So in a district that covers Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and New Mexico, competition is tough.
Casas and Gonzaba, who have been a team since they were students at Milliard South in Omaha, Neb., debated in eight preliminary rounds compiling a 5-3 record. They had wins over K-State, University of Central Oklahoma, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Missouri State and University of Texas-Dallas. In the qualifying rounds after preliminaries, KCKCC defeated K-State again to earn the berth to the NDT.
“During the first 40 years of the NDT, it was dominated by private, four year universities. That has changed significantly in the last decade, and I think that says a lot for what is being done in education,” Elliott said. “I think part of their success can be attributed to how well they know each other and the passion they have for the things they talk about in debate. They talk about issues that they personally have an interest in so they are things they truly believe in.”
Over the next few weeks, the NDT is March 28-31, Casas and Gonzaba will be preparing by researching topics as well as staying on top of their KCKCC coursework. There is one thing that neither student, however has when entering tournaments against much larger schools – intimidation.
“I think it works to our advantage,” Casas said. “I think they underestimate us. We are not intimidated.”
Kelly Rogge is the public information supervisor at Kansas City Kansas Community College.