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By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Hayden football coaching legend Tom Stringer passed away Friday at the age of 64 years old.
Tom Stringer visits with John Tetuan, the star quarterback on his undefeated 1998 Class 4A state championship team, during Stringer's Hayden Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2023. [File photo/TSN]
A 1979 Hayden graduate, Stringer went on to earn first-team All-America honors at Pittsburg State as an offensive lineman before returning to Hayden where he served as head football coach from 1992-2006, leading the Wildcats to the school's first Class 4A state championsip in 1998 with a 13-0 record before adding a second undefeated state title in 2004.
A member of the Pittsburg State Athletics Hall of Fame, Stringer was inducted into the Hayden Catholic Hall of Fame in 2023 and said that being back at the school that meant so much to him throughout his life was extra sweet.
Tom Stringer, who passed away Friday at the age of 64, was inducted into the Hayden Hall of Fame in 2023 and is also a member of the Pittsburg State Athletic Hall of Fame. [File photo/TSN]
"It's really special because you get to re-live one of the best parts of your life,'' Stringer said on the night of his induction. "You don't know how bad you liked something until you get away from it, so this is good. I'm very proud and very grateful that I got selected to do this. It's been 17 years since I've been here and every day I think about this place. Every day.''
Stringer will be inducted into the Kansas Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame on Sunday, Dec. 7, at the Kansas Star Casino.
Stringer's Hayden teams won the Centennial League championship seven times and he achieved a career record of 131-35 during his 15 seasons as the Wildcats' head coach.
Stringer coached in the Kansas Shrine Bowl four times (twice as head coach).
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By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
The No. 2-ranked Washburn Ichabods will host the Ottawa Braves at 2 p.m. on Saturday in Lee Arena in their final tuneup up before opening MIAA play next week.
Washburn is 7-0 after rolling to a 105-51 win over Friends on Tuesday while Ottawa is 5-3 this season after dropping an 84-69 decision to McPherson in its last outing.
Former Washburn Rural star Jack Bachelor is averaging a team-high 17.4 points and 5.0 assists for 7-0 Washburn men's basketball. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN
After facing an NAIA foe for the second straight game on Saturday, Washburn will open its MIAA season next Thursday against Nebraska-Kearney and next Saturday against Fort Hays State, with both games in Lee Arena.
"The good thing about this week is we're able to focus a little bit more on ourselves and it's a little more self-scouting than it is on the opponent,'' Washburn coach Brett Ballard said. "We've got to respect those guys, but this has been good to hopefully use this practice time to tighten things up.''
"We look at every day as you're getting better or you're getting worse,'' junior Jack Bachelor said. "So taking steps in practice, taking steps in games and just working together and keep getting better as a team and individually is our goal because we know this MIAA conference is the best in the country, so there's going to be no off nights.''
Washburn's players also got the chance to take a short Thanksgiving break from Wednesday afternoon until returning to practice on Friday.
"This is a little bit of a time for them to re-charge,'' Ballard said. "It's a quick break, but a little bit of a re-charge for the players.''
Both Bachelor and sophomore Dillon Claussen have cracked double figures in all seven games this season and sneior Bryson Smith has scored no fewer than 12 points in each of the last six games, including 22 points in a win over Rockhurst.
Bachelor is averaging a team-high 17.4 points and 5.0 assists while shooting 88.9 percent from the free throw line.
Claussen is averaging 16.4 points and 7.3 rebounds.
Claussen led the way with 19 points against Friends, shooting 9 of 11 from the field while adding six rebounds, two steals, and a block. Bachelor followed with 16 points, six assists, five steals, and three rebounds, while hitting four 3-pointers, and Smith added 14 points, three assists, and three steals.
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By VINCE LOVERGINE
TopSports.news
Seaman boys basketball remembers its Class 5A sub-state loss to Valley Center at home last season and the Vikings don’t want that to happen again this year.
Seaman senior KaeVon Bonner is a returning two-time All-Shawnee County Top 10 pick. [File photo/TSN]
“I’m already envisioning that scenario and trying to coach towards that when we get into late February, early March that we’re making the right decisions and not just trying something and hoping it turns out in our favor,'' Seaman coach Craig Cox said. "I really enjoyed last season, but I did not enjoy the way we finished.''
Cox will be in year 15 at the helm of the Vikings' program and wants to see how this senior group will respond when the lights are turned on, especially watching their growth the last couple of years.
The Vikings went 13-8 in 2024-2025 and 9-12 in 2023-2024 after winning the state championship in 2022-2023 with an 18-7 record.
“We’ve got really good team chemistry, they like each other, they support each other, they’re there for each other and that makes our job a lot easier,'' Cox said. "I don’t have to worry about a lot of distractions because they’re good students and come from good families.
“We want an environment where they (players) want to be there and they’re not dreading practice, they’re not scared about what’s going to happen, how much we’re going to have to run. We want to have a good time and try to improve and limit our mistakes and help us be successful on game night.”
Cox mentioned that the Vikings have the potential to be a high scoring team this season, but last year they were easy to score on and they have to tighten that aspect up to have more chances.
“The mistake I made as a coach is thinking we need to help them on offense so that we kind of set aside our defensive drills and when I look back to our really good defensive teams in the past, it’s because we put the time in,'' Cox said.
"Unfortunately, this year with tryouts and our first game on Dec. 2, we don’t have time to do a lot, so we’re going to throw it at them and hopefully as we get to Christmas break and all of those practices and then in mid-season tournament time, we can continually be better defensively.''
Cox said Landon Wiltz, Griffin Zuniga, Matthew McConnaughey and Cameron Brian are players whoe will contribute this season along with senior KaeVon Bonner, who has been a key factor for the Vikings since his freshman year.
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By VINCE LOVERGINE
TopSports.news
In Class 5A, you’ve grown accustomed to the Seaman Lady Vikings basketball program being at the top for the last several seasons.
Senior Maddie Gragg is a three-time All-Shawnee County Top 10 selection for Seaman. [File photo/TSN]
The Vikings went 23-2 and won the state championship in 2024 and posted a 24-1 record and finished as the state runnerup last season. Seaman also made the state tournament in 2023, losing in the first round.
Coach Matt Tinsley enters his ninth year at Seaman and 20th overall as a coach. Tinsley put it simply that this season is just as important as the last couple of years.
“We still have Vikes on our jersey,” Tinsley said. “My expectations are not going to change. I understand why some coaches say it’s a rebuilding year. I don’t take it that way because I feel that if you have to say you’re rebuilding, you’re saying that you’ve been knocked down. I think our tradition and culture speaks for itself and I’m never going to use a rebuilding year because you’re just giving yourself an excuse.
“If you wear our jersey, you’re going to play with pride and play the right way. That’s what I’m excited about is seeing the growth in this team. We have some girls that are hungry and they feel like they have something to prove and I love those challenges as a coach too.”
The likes of Anna Becker, Taylin and Jaida Stallbaumer, Ava Esser, the list goes on of great talent to come from the Viking program. How does Tinsley try to fill those shoes to continue that dominance of great players?
“We got to get these kids to understand what their role is going to be on this team and how they can contribute,” he said. “Every kid out here is going to have a chance to show what they can do to help the team. Every day is an evaluation. My college coach always said that every day is a chance to earn your playing time to excel in your role.
"Whereas last year we could give it to Anna, ‘Hey go make a play’, this year, they’re going to have to rely on each other to make sure that we’re getting shots that we want to shoot, understanding our alignment and assignments and understanding time and score.''
Senior Maddie Gragg, whose only lost five games in her high school career, and junior Cara Beaton said they have to lead by example, encourage and push the pace to show the younger players how it’s done to develop good habits.
“We want to keep that legacy going and I think the standards are the same as last year if not higher and you can tell with the practices we’re still practicing the same just with different players,” said Gragg, a three-time All-Shawnee County Top 10 pick.
“Keep the same intensity as last year, just better attitudes and encouragement,” Beaton said.
Tinsley said he knows with the personnel he has there will be some tweaks made throughout the season and he knows that takes time and he will be patient with the girls on that. He said if they bring the effort and attitude every day to practice and games, they’ll be just fine.
In addition to Gragg, who averaged 13.3 points with 39 3-pointers, Beaton is another player Tinsley has high hopes for running the point guard position after being on the state championship and runnerup teams. Sophomore Lydia Dreher was another name Tinsley mentioned as a solid post player for the Vikes.
“We would like to see some separation in practice, but right now there's a lot of girls that I think can play but we won’t know until game night on how they’re going to respond,'' Tinsley said. "Definitely, our junior class is going to have to take that next step.''
Tinsley said the Vikings' approach this season will be different compared to last year where they had five players that could score 10 points or more a game. He said he will tell the team what they can do versus what they can’t do because that will build their confidence.
“We’re going to be a team that nobody is going to want to play come the end of the season. I feel really good about this team and we’re going to surprise some people,” Tinsley said.
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By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Hayden football's 13-member senior class has already made school history by leading the Wildcats to a third straight Class 3A state championship game.
Hayden's seniors celebrate the Wildcats' Class 3A sub-state championship after last Friday's 46-0 win over Santa Fe Trail. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
At 6 p.m. on Friday in Hutchinson, the Wildcat upperclassmen will be out to add an exclamation point to that success with the school's fourth state championship after back-to-back runnerup finishes.
After dropping a 34-7 decision to Cheney in awful conditions in the 2023 title game, Hayden dropped a 36-19 decision to Andale a year ago before running off 12 straight wins this fall to earn a rematch with the Indians, also 12-0.
"A lot of these guys, they saw action as a sophomore and that's invaluable I think when you look at the grand scheme of things,'' said Hayden coach Bill Arnold, who has led the Wildcats to a state crown in 2008 and five runnerup finishes. "State championships are a little bit different and they've kept themselves focused and they haven't been afraid to climb the mountain again.
"It's not easy losing two in a row, but nobody has even talked about losing it. We just knew that our goal was to get back there and win a state championship.''
And although Arnold knows the Wildcats face another tough test against an Andale team that has won five of six state titles since 2019, the Hayden coach also knows he'll get a maximum effort from his team.
"A hundred percent,'' Arnold said. "They get it. From the senior standpoint, leadership-wise they've been right on cue all year long and, honestly, starting all the way back in January. They know what the expectations are and they've been good leaders on and off the field.
"They've got a great program down there (in Andale) and I think we've got a good program, too. I am more concerned about us than I am about Andale in terms of just our assignments and the technique involved in our assignments. And if we do all those things correctly, at the end of the day, win, lose or draw, you can live with yourself.''
Hayden's put itself in position to win the 2024 title when the Wildcats took a 19-12 lead to the locker room at halftime.
But Andale took control in the second half en route to the 17-point win.
"We lost a little bit of momentum right before half because we didn't get in the end zone,'' Arnold said. "Then we had a ridiculous penalty that allowed them to make us start inside our 20 and the playbook gets a little smaller down there. We had to punt and they came out and scored.
"We turned the ball over immediately and I think through part of that, was we did get tired. They were rotating a few more guys on that line than what we could, but part of that's also your mentality state. When things are going good you've got your adrenalin and your momentum going through, but when we had a couple of mishaps there right off the bat coming out of halftime, the ship was sailing the wrong direction.''
