KINGMAN LEADER-COURIER 1BTHURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2018 KCNONLINE.COM

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BY BOB MORRISSports Editor

LEXI SMITH

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KMS Girls Open Hoops Season With Wins

BOB MORRIS / Leader-CourierBOB MORRIS / Leader-Courier

As many of you know, I took the court as a member of the Gold-en Age Eagles to face the Harlem Wizards.

For those of you who watched the game, you could tell it has been a long time since I played basket-ball. I never played high school ball because I was too short and wasn’t much of a ball handler (this is what happens when you attend a large high school). Still, I found time to play recreational ball when I could.

But that was a long time ago. For those of you who watched me, you

no doubt noticed my full-length drive of the court for two was the definition of “slow motion.”

Seriously, I had debated about volunteering for the donkey bas-ketball game but things didn’t work out. So when Rollie Van Wyhe needed more players for the Gold-en Age Eagles, I decided I’d better volunteer this time.

As you can imagine, there was no game plan from anyone — just a reason to have fun. And believe me, the Harlem Wizards made things a lot of fun.

Most of the time, you were told to stand in one place and let the Harlem Wizards do their thing. At one point, one of the Wizards

had the ball and I acted like I was defending him. So he starts sway-ing and moving, and I just moved along with him. I never knew he would make such a good dance partner.

It was only in the third quarter when the Wizards planned to play a serious game of basketball, rath-er than just have fun with dunks, long three-pointers and other skills. The Golden Age Eagles who took the court held their own — some of them were even hitting long threes.

The only time you were asked to allow the Wizards to score was when they were going for a dunk. That’s understandable —

the whole point of the game is for the Wizards to show their unique skills and entertain the crowd. Gotta give the fans their money’s worth, after all.

I should mention that most of the Wizards players who were there for the game were older gen-tlemen. One of them was actually older than I am. Clearly age doesn’t matter if you want to be a Harlem Wizard — you just want to enjoy basketball and have a good time with everybody.

And the Wizards not only knew how to have a good time, they were so gracious to all the kids who wanted autographs. They spent all of halftime meeting the kids and

stuck around for quite a while after the game. I’m sure the kids appre-ciated that.

It took me a couple of days to re-cover from the game, though. But it was worth it to go out there, have some fun and help raise funds for the Kingman High School Booster Club.

I want to thank the Harlem Wiz-ards for coming out to Kingman and presenting a fun night of bas-ketball for everyone. Who knows, I might even be able to take the court again if they come back to King-man some day. I might not be that skilled in hoops, but it’s worth it to have a good time with everyone and raise money for a good cause.

Kingman residents Camille and Abigail Behring were part of the Bishop Carroll High School girl’s cross country team that took second at the Class 5A State cross country meet Oct. 27 at Rim Rock Farms in Lawrence.

Camille, a sophomore, placed 21st with with a personal best time of 20:21 and Ab-igail, a freshman placed 30th with a time of 20:43.

They are the daughters of Theodore and Mary Behring.

The Cunningham volleyball team had four players who received Heart of the Plains League All-League honors and the Norwich volleyball team had one player make All-League.

Named to the first team for Cunningham

were junior Holly DeWeese, sophomore Morgan Meyers and sophomore Maddi Panek. Sophomore Alayna McGuire re-ceived honorable mention.

Norwich senior Brayln Schroeder also received honorable mention.

Notes From A Guy Who Faced the Harlem Wizards

Five Kingman County Players Get All-HOPL Volleyball Honors

Behrings Part of 5A Girl’s State Cross Country 2nd-Place Team

Lexi Smith Named to All-League 2nd Team

Kingman High School se-nior Lexi Smith was chosen for the Central Plains League All-League second team as an outside hitter.

A four-year varsity player, Smith was one of six seniors on the Lady Eagles, who fin-ished 12-24 for the season, 3-6 in league play.

This is the second time Smith has received all-league honors. She was an honorable mention for the All-Central Kansas League team last year.

The Kingman Middle School girl’s basketball teams opened their seasons Tuesday with wins at home against Wichita Indepen-dent.

The 7th-graders beat In-dependent 26-16. The Lady

Eagles opened with a quick 15-5 lead in the first quarter, taking advantage of turn-overs for quick baskets.

Laney Wood led the Lady Eagles with 15 points, Jadyn Belt had four, Gracie Mc-Dorman had three and Claire

Meng had two.The 8th-graders beat In-

dependent 15-11. It was a low-scoring game in which the Lady Eagles generated plenty of scoring opportuni-ties but couldn’t put the ball into the basket.

Key to the win was the second half, in which the Lady Eagles outscored Inde-pendent 12-5.

Deveney Albright led Kingman with eight points, Marissa DeWeese had four, Peyton Graber had two and

Marley Munz had one.Kingman will travel to

Garden Plain for its next Central Plains League game Thursday, then will host Conway Springs Mon-day.

The KMS boy’s team

opened at Wichita Inde-pendent Tuesday night. Results of those games will be posted at KCNOn-line.com. The boys will host Garden Plain Thurs-day, then head to Conway Springs Monday.

Kingman’s Lexee Beck tries to get the ball past a Wichita Independent defender. Kingman’s Destiny Leis comes away with the rebound against Wichita Independent.