Month: February 2018

Record nine straight 3-pointers rally Hesston past KCKCC

by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC

Kansas City Kansas Community College’s short-handed men’s basketball team got shot down Wednesday night by the most spectacular 3-point shooting in Jayhawk Conference history.

Trailing KCKCC by eight points midway through the second half, Hesston drained nine consecutive 3-point field goals without a miss in a 6-minute stretch for a 73-61 victory.

The loss dropped the Blue Devils (1-6) a game back of Labette (2-5) in the Jayhawk Conference heading into their final home game of the season Saturday against Fort Scott in the second half of a doubleheader at 4 p.m. The game is also Sophomore Day with Juwan Davenport and Josiah Laws to be recognized in post-game ceremonies.

KCKCC had a 44-36 lead with 9:39 left in the second half at Hesston only to have the Larks drain 3-pointers on nine of their next 10 possessions (one turnover). Five Larks had 3-pointers in the stretch of nine straight. Aubrey Johnson was the leader with four while Cal Hartley had two.

The 27-10 assault pushed Hesston to a 63-54 lead with 3:29 remaining and overcame KCKCC’s 50 percent shooting the second half (13-of-26).

The Larks put up 33 3-point attempts, netting 15 for 45.5 percent including a torrid 10-of-17 in the second half (.588). The Blue Devils, who had only two less field goals, were 5-of-13 from distance.

The Blue Devils were led by freshman Malcom Tate, who scored a game high and career high 22 points on 8-of-14 shooting and 3-of-4 from 3-point. Tyson Beringer added 14 points before fouling out while Juwan Davenport added 10, DuVonte Beard 8 and Josiah Laws 7.

Laws also led in rebounding with eight while Davenport and Beard added seven each to give KCKCC a 31-30 board edge. KCKCC also shot better (.418-.403) while committing 11 turnovers to Hesston’s seven..

In other conference action Wednesday, Johnson County (7-0) took a two-game lead over Highland (5-2) with a 74-66 home court win while Labette was upsetting Fort Scott 70-68.

Welborn Lake meeting planned today

Possible strategies for Welborn Lake were posted on a board at a community meeting on Nov. 28. Another meeting on Welborn Lake is scheduled from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 15, at Christ the King Church, Davern Hall, 53rd and Leavenworth Road. (Staff photo)

A meeting on the future of Welborn Lake will take place from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 15, at Christ the King Church, Davern Hall, 53rd and Leavenworth Road.

The meeting, open to the public, is expected to explore ways to clean up the private lake, near 48th and Leavenworth Road.

An effort is underway on the part of the Unified Government Public Works Department and Shockey Consultants to get community comments on the lake and explore what should be done with it.

The lake was covered with algae and an area conservationist stepped forward to look at it and help start cleaning it up last year. Cleaning up the lake has been a long-time goal of the Leavenworth Road Association.

An earlier meeting was held Nov. 28 at the West Wyandotte Library on Welborn Lake. After reviewing comments from that meeting, the consultants are expected to come up with some proposed solutions.

The meeting on Feb. 15 will be a come-and-go meeting. There might be some discussion about what the Leavenworth Road modernization will look like at Welborn Lake, and also, about storm drainage overflow, according to Lou Braswell, executive director of the Leavenworth Road Association.

Community residents discussed the future of Welborn Lake at a meeting in November. Another meeting is scheduled from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 15, at Christ the King Church, Davern Hall, 53rd and Leavenworth Road. (Staff photo)

T-Bones swap former White Sox farmhands and add infielder


The Kansas City T-Bones have traded infielder Marcus Lemon to the New Jersey Jackals of the Can-Am League for right-handed relief pitcher Kyle Hansen.

The team has also signed infielder J.C. Rodriguez for 2018 and announced that outfielder Chantz Mack has retired from baseball.

Kyle Hansen joins the T-Bones from New Jersey of the CAN-AM League, where the Oyster Bay, New York, native spent the last week of the 2017 season after being traded from Trois-Rivieres on Aug. 25.

Hansen appeared in four games with the Jackals with a 4.50 ERA in four innings of relief. In 17 games with Trois-Rivieres he went 3-0 with a 1.56 ERA in 17 games out of the pen, totaling 17.1 innings with 25 strikeouts. Hansen saved eight games combined last season.

Hansen was a sixth-round pick by the Chicago White Sox in 2012 out of St. John’s University. In five seasons with the White Sox organization, the right-hander went 20-17 with a 4.16 ERA in 119 games with 20 starts over 249.0 innings of work.

Hansen struck out 241 over the five seasons in affiliated ball, reaching AA Birmingham in 2015 and 2016. Hansen began his independent career with Long Island of the Atlantic League after his release from Chicago, going 1-2 over 16 relief innings to finish the 2016 season.

Marcus Lemon spent one season with Kansas City, playing in 98 games and hitting .265 with eight home runs and 45 RBI for the T-Bones. Lemon spent the majority of the 2016 season at AA Birmingham for the Chicago White Sox. He also spent 17 games at AAA Charlotte in the International League.

Lemon was the fourth-round pick by the Texas Rangers in the 2006 June MLB Amateur Draft out of Eustis High School. He’s played for four major-league organizations including Texas, Atlanta, Detroit and Chicago.

The T-Bones signed switch-hitting infielder J.C. Rodriguez, a former New York Mets minor leaguer, who spent seven seasons in the Mets system. He is a career .242 hitter in 579 games with 19 home runs and 197 RBI with 74 stolen bases. In the field Rodriguez has a career fielding percentage of .961.

In 2017 Rodriguez spent 127 games at high A St. Lucie in the Florida State League, hitting .214 with four homers and 40 RBI. Rodriguez added 16 stolen bases while playing 118 games at shortstop with a .937 fielding percentage. He began the season playing three games a AA Binghamton in the Eastern League.

Rodriguez, a native of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, was signed as an 18-year-old in 2011 and spent the first two seasons in the Dominican Summer League with the Mets. He made his state side debut with the Mets Gulf Coast club in 2013 and made the steady climb up the New York organization ladder.

In 2014 with Kingsport in the Appalachian League, Rodriguez hit .312 in 49 games, and at low A Savannah in the South Atlantic League, he played in 112 games with a .254 average in 2015. In 2016 he appeared in a career-high 124 games at Columbia in the Sally League, hitting .237.

The Kansas City T-Bones signed Chantz Mack on June 5 and inserted him immediately into the lineup. On his first night against Wichita he went deep and went 3-for-4 with a double and a pair of RBI.

Mack, who was born in Miami, Florida, was drafted by the Seattle Mariners in the 29th round of the 2013 MLB Amateur Draft from the University of Miami. In his only “indy” ball season, Mack hit .247 in 80 games with 10 home runs and 48 RBI in 2017.

Full and half-season ticket packages for 2018, flex plans and group ticket sales are now on sale online at tbonesbaseball.com or by calling 913-328-5618 or visiting in person the T-Bones Stadium Box Office.

– Story from T-Bones