Tiger girls picked to repeat in SEK

First-year Uniontown head boys' basketball coach Jeremy Neville addresses the media during a pre-season conference at Pittsburg Monday afternoon. Neville, a UHS graduate, saw his team picked fourth by Three Rivers League coaches in a pre-season poll. (Scott Nuzum/Tribune)

PITTSBURG -- Fort Scott High School's girls were picked to defend their Southeast Kansas League title in a pre-season poll conducted and presented by KHSQ Radio here Monday afternoon.

Tiger girls received five first-place votes and scored 35 total points followed by Chanute with one first-place vote and 30 points and Labette County with the other first-place vote and 21 points.

SEK boys' coaches also voted for a repeat as they picked Coffeyville unanimously. The Golden Tornado scored 36 points while Independence was picked second with the first-place vote from Coffeyville's coach since one could not vote for their own team. Labette County was picked for third place with 26 points followed by Fort Scott in fourth with 21.

The Three Rivers League boys' pick was Chetopa, which got four of seven first-place votes and 52 total points, followed by Oswego, which got three first-place votes and 50 points. Uniontown, with first-year head coach and Eagle alum Jeremy Neville in charge, was chosen fourth.

St. Paul was picked to win the girls' championship in the TRL. With just six of the coaches returning ballots, the Indians were picked to win the girls' title unanimously with 5 top votes and 45 points. Defending champion Jayhawk-Linn followed with 42 points. Uniontown was tabbed for fifth place.

The Crawford-Neosho-Cherokee League polls were also released with Frontenac's girls picked ahead of Columbus with all but one first-place vote and Riverton tabbed to be the boys' champion in a close vote.

Fort Scott girls' head coach Jeff Armstrong said that leadership is one of the things his Tigers are looking for this season.

"No matter how much talent you have, if you don't have leadership, you're not going to do very much," Armstrong said. "We do have good seniors. We have a couple of juniors, one of whom is going to play significant minutes."

Among the returning players are seniors Katren Rienbolt, Brianne Lawerence and Jillian Lattimer, junior Elisha Hasenplaugh, and sophomore Ashley Cook.

Fort Scott boys' head coach Jeff DeLaTorre has four seniors back but spoke of the loss of senior Zach Denton, who will miss a second consecutive season with a knee injury suffered during football season. Also, senior Alex Fink will be out until after the holiday break with a broken collarbone suffered in the Tigers' football playoff game.

"This is about where I figured we would finish," DeLaTorre said. "Last year at this time, we were definitely a young team with a lot of inexperience. This year, we return a lot of those players. That's always a better deal."

Neville was so pumped up to get going with his first practice as USH head coach Monday morning that he woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. He has 24 kids to begin practice.

"I spent a few years in Missouri, so it's nice to be back in Southeast Kansas," Neville said. "It's great to be back in the orange and black.

"We're going to try to play a more exciting brand of basketball," Neville said. "Ultimately, we want to have our kids playing hard. We have three seniors returning and they had a good off-season."

Uniontown girls' head coach Dustin Miller was unable to attend the conference due to a scheduling conflict. The Eagles picked up 32 points in voting, which saw third through sixth places separated by just 7 points.

SOUTHEAST KANSAS LEAGUE

Girls

Boys

THREE RIVERS LEAGUE

Girls

Boys

CRAWFORD-NEOSHO-CHEROKEE LEAGUE

Girls

Boys