Hesston women to visit FSCC for playoff game

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Fort Scott Community College's women will host a playoff game for the first time in nearly a decade this afternoon as fifth-seeded Hesston visits the No. 4 Greyhounds for a Region VI-Division II first-round playoff game at Arnold Arena. Tip off is scheduled for 2 p.m.

Hesston (12-17) and Fort Scott (15-15) faced each other twice during the regular season. The Greyhounds won 76-60 at Arnold Arena on January 20 and 64-52 at Hesston on Feb. 13.

Kamiron Luptak. the second-leading scorer in Region VI, led the Greyhounds with 26 points in the first meeting followed by Kayleigh Haggard with 17. Sarah Hoover led the Larks that night with 13 points.

Lupkak scored 23 points in the February rematch. Hoover scored 16 for Hesston that night.

Fort Scott comes into today's contest having lost three of its last four games but all the losses have come to nationally-ranked teams Highland (No. 7), Johnson County (No. 1) and Kansas City Kansas (No. 11).

The Greyhounds may short-handed today as Tabor Spurling nurses a shoulder injury and Jordyn Danzer tries to recover from a concussion. If neither dress, Fort Scott will be able to dress just six players for the fourth consecutive contest.

Hesston comes into the contest on a three-game losing streak, having lost to Highland, Kansas City and Johnson County. Their last win came at Labette on February 18.

The winner of this game will play on the road Tuesday night at top-seeded Johnson County in a semifinal match. The winner of today's other game, sixth-seeded Brown Mackie (11-19) at third-seeded Highland (25-4) will play at Kansas City Tuesday night.

Fort Scott last hosted a playoff game in March of 2007, when they beat Dodge City, 94-67, to advance to quarterfinal play at Wichita. The Greyhounds lost the next game to Labette, 72-62.

Fort Scott's last playoff victory was at Cloud County in the 2010 Region VI Tournament, when the Greyhounds were still a Division I team. The Greyhounds are 5-25 all-time in playoff games and head coach Katie Reihmann will be attempting to become just the fourth coach in the program's history (out of 19) to win a playoff game. The others were Nathan Daume (three from 1999-2002), Kristy Guffy (2007) and Diana Couch (2010).

Hesston's women will be playing for the first time since Cedric Ford killed three people and wounded 16 others in a shooting spree that ended at a local factory on Thursday. Hesston College went on lockdown during the incident as the campus is located four blocks from Excel Industries, where the shooting took place.

"The shooter was not on campus," Hesston College posted on its Twitter feed. "No students or employees were in immediate danger and all students and employees on campus complied with the lockdown alert.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the shooting victims and their families, as well as everyone at Excel and the entire Hesston community," the series of tweets concluded.