Sports

HOISINGTON — The Lady ‘Cats of Ellsworth rolled over LaCrosse, 53-35 to claim seventh place at the annual Hoisington Winter Jam basketball tournament Saturday in Hoisington.

The Bearcats did not compete Tuesday, following the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The win gives Ellsworth a 3-9 record for the season. The Lady ‘Cats will face North Central Activities Association rival Southeast of Saline (7-4) at 6 p.m. Friday in Gypsum.

Hoisington defeated Ellsworth 43-37 Jan. 17 at Hoisington to place them in the seventh place game.

Statistics of the above games were not available at press time.

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HOISINGTON — Otis-Bison defeated the Ellsworth Bearcats, 48-37, in the fifth place game Saturday at the annual Hoisington Winter Jam basketball tournament in Hoisington.

Bransen Schulte led the scoring for Ellsworth and was in double digits with 14 points; John Kyler scored eight; Braden Schulte scored five; Grant Gwinner and Josiah Bolton each made four and Hayden Rogers scored two. Bransen Schulte scored three assists.

Avery Haxton and Bransen Schulte each had eight rebounds; Bolton had four; Gwinner scored three; Braden Schulte and Jace Turnipseed each had two; Kyler and Rogers scored one.

The Bearcats did not compete Tuesday, following the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The ‘Cats, now 2-10 for the season, will face North Central Activities Association rival Southeast of Saline at 7 p.m. Friday in Gypsum.

Wilson’s Tristan Soukup led the Dragons Friday night with 17 points as they defeated Thunder Ridge 50-37 at home.

He was followed closely by Ethan Dlabal with 12 points. Senior Brady Mermis added nine and Westin Hughes and Connor Weinhold each had one.

The two teams battled through numerous turnovers during the first eight minutes as Wilson held an 11-9 lead. The Dragons extended their lead to 24-17 at halftime despite both Soukup and Dlabal having to head to the bench with three fouls each. The two players remained on the bench for the first three minutes of the second half and Thunder Ridge cut Wilson’s lead to 29-27.

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Ellsworth couldn’t overcome 19 turnovers Friday night as it dropped a North Central Activities Association game to Sacred Heart 64-59 at Salina.

With the loss, the Bearcats fell to 1-8 overall and 1-4 in league.

Sacred Heart scored the first 10 points of the second quarter to take control of the game and survived a six-minute dry spell spanning the third and fourth quarters to remain unbeaten in the NCAA at 5-0.

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And then came the fourth quarter. The Ellsworth girls spent the better part of Friday night going point-to-point with the Lady Knights of Sacred Heart — until the game’s final stanza.

The score was 47-35 by the time the game ended at Sacred Heart in Salina.

The Lady Knights scored the last four points in the third quarter to go in front of the Lady Bearcats for good, then reeled off five more to start the fourth after neither team led by more than three points for the first three periods.

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The Wilson Dragons boys’ basketball team defeated Southern Cloud at home Friday night, winning 43-32 in their second match-up of the season.

In early December, Southern Cloud defeated Wilson 48-29 during the Tescott Tip-Off, but on Friday night that all changed. Fresh off a 61-48 win over the Natoma Tigers before Christmas break, the Dragons were ready to resume the season.

The win puts the Dragons at 3-0 in league and 5-3 overall.

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The Ellsworth Lady ‘Cats basketball team rolled over the Republic County Lady Buffaloes Friday night, winning 44-27.

The win was the second of the season for the Lady Bearcats, who are now 2-2 in league play and 2-6 overall.

Ellsworth fired on all cylinders in a game that saw the Bearcats outscore the competition in each quarter except the third. Overall, the ‘Cats shot 56 percent from the field and 50 percent from the line.

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The up and coming Bearcat wrestling team placed third with 104 points Saturday at the 46th annual Bearcat Invitational Wrestling tournament in Ellsworth.

Perennial powerhouse Hoisington won the tournament with a total of 176.5 points and Hill City, another well-respected grappling school, placed second with 143. A total of 12 teams participated in the tournament.

The ‘Cats were led by undefeated heavyweight grappler Tyler Walford (7-0) who pinned his way to the championship. Walford forced opponents Noah Hopkins of Ell-Saline; Isaac Quintero of Garden Plain; Alex Koehn of Hesston; and Josiah Moore of Southeast of Saline to inspect the ceiling of the Ellsworth gymnasium before defeating Hoisington’s Riley Philbern in the second period of the championship match.

Emily Ryan does not look like the best basketball player in Kansas. She’s thin, not real tall, and though humble is not a physical attribute, it’s a trait so embodied by Ryan one can almost see it.

But make no mistake about it: no one in Kansas put up numbers like Ryan in the 2017-18 season. Now, the reigning Kansas Gatorade Player of the Year is ready for her junior campaign at Central Plains High School.

“Emily is a very special person and player,” said Lady Oiler coach Pat Stiles.“Her work ethic is second to none. Emily is the ultimate gym rat; she spends countless hours in the gym on top of team practices.”

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The grainy black and white photo from the Marion Chronicle of more than a half-century ago doesn’t begin to tell the story of that year’s Liberty Center Lions.

Compared to today’s super-charged teams, the Lions — most of them closer in height to Danny DeVito than Arnold Schwarzenegger — probably wouldn’t qualify to be on a basketball court. Yet there they were — winners of their county sectional for the first time in 20 years, defeating Bluffton, the big guys on the block. Next came regionals. Liberty Center was the smallest school of the 64 still in competition for a State championship.

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