Pittsburg selected preseason favorite

With longtime members Columbus and Iola now departed for other leagues, the seven-team Southeast Kansas League returns to round-robin play in football for the first time since 1980.

"I do like the format where we're all playing each other," Pittsburg head coach Tom Nickelson said Thursday on SEK League Media Day sponsored by 99.1 FM "ESPN the Ticket." "We get to see Independence and Parsons again. . . . It gets to show you a true league champ instead of the win-loss percentage. We're excited about that, excited to play all you guys and we know we'd better bring our A-game."

"I know playing in the SEK, it's one of the toughest conferences in the whole state," Chanute head coach Don Simmons said. "Not just Southeast Kansas or Eastern Kansas but the whole state. You know it's going to be a physical brand of football, you know it's going to be a dogfight every time you step on the field every Friday night. That's what makes it so fun and exciting, especially with it down to seven teams and everybody's going to be playing everybody this year. That's awesome. We can have a true league champion and not go off win-loss percentage."

Pittsburg, two-time defending SEK League champions, received two first-place votes and six top-three votes, finishing with 32 points, three points higher than Fort Scott and Coffeyville. The Golden Tornado picked up a league-high three first-place votes.
The Purple Dragons graduated Joe Wimmer, Marcus Striplin and Shrine Bowl selection Broc Bennett. However, senior quarterback-defensive back Spencer Bernhardt, senior offensive linemen Skyler McGuire, Dakota Taylor and Chris Huyett, senior running back-linebacker Anthony McNeely and sophomore linebacker Alex Barnes are included among 10 returning starters on both sides of the ball for Pittsburg (6-3 overall, 5-0 SEK last year).

"We've had a successful summer," Nickelson said. "Our numbers haven't quite been where they've been at in the past but I think our commitment level's up drastically. We had about 80 percent of our kids who were 95 percent attenders at every activity or better. That's good for us. . . . We asked a lot of our boys and they rose up to it. So we feel like we've given ourselves a chance this year. They've pushed each other hard, they've encouraged each other, they've built a lot of good team chemistry over the summer."

Pittsburg returns Independence and Parsons to the schedule, with no games against Columbus and Paola. The Purple Dragons stay in Class 5A for district play and face defending state runner-up Blue Valley, Blue Valley Southwest and Blue Valley West in a three-horse suburban Kansas City district slate.

Coffeyville (6-4) won its second consecutive district title last year but lost in the first round of the Class 4A state playoffs for the second year under head coach Murray Zogg, entering his third season on the Golden Tornado sideline.

"Last year, we had a good football team," Zogg said. "We started off 1-3 and played very tough teams at the beginning of the season with Pittsburg, Fort Scott and Ark City. We finally came together as a team and won five in a row and won district (Baxter Springs, Columbus, Labette County)."

Back-to-back 1,000-yard rusher Wesley Collins and super-fast wide receiver James Newton lead a contingent of returning starters that does not include quarterback-strong safety Cory Turner, who was dismissed from the team for undisclosed violations of team rules.

Zogg addressed Coffeyville's sometimes unsavory reputation for talent being its greatest blessing and its greatest curse.

"We're trying to get rid of the stereotype that we've had lots of talent but can't win anything," Zogg said. "Not enough discipline to win, so we're trying to change that mentality and it takes a lot of work."

Fort Scott (8-2) finished second in the SEK and won its district last year. The Tigers have nine returning starters, including their senior leader in the offensive and defensive backfields.

"We've got five starters on offense back," Fort Scott head coach Bob Campbell said. "We do return our quarterback (Johnathan Stark). He's not a real big kid. He's about 5-foot-9, 170 pounds, a good decision-maker, a good player, a really good leader for us. We also return three starters on the o-line. That's nice, we haven't had that for a while. On defense, we return five starters. One thing about us this year is that I can see competition at some positions being really good for us. We don't have a standout running back but I think we've got five or six kids who could give us depth there."
Chanute (8-4) struggled during parts of its season but came on strong at the end and advanced to the quarterfinals of the Class 4A state playoffs, losing to state runner-up Eudora.

The Blue Comets return starting quarterback Brock Gilmore and starting running back Blake Kisner, both seniors who produced big for the Blue Comets during their junior seasons.

"We've got a quarterback that's (6-4, 220), probably one of the biggest kids on our team and some people think he should be playing on the line," Simmons said. "He's a pretty good quarterback, threw for 2,100 yards last year and 14 touchdowns and has had a great offseason this summer.

"The funny thing about Blake was that last year when I was standing up here talking about how the (Jared) McComb kid moved to Texas a week before the season started and we were scrambling to find out who our tailback was going to be, Blake Kisner was probably No. 6 on our depth chart at that time and then really stepped up and had an outstanding year for us. He became our best running back and has worked hard in the offseason. We're expecting good things from him."

Independence (5-4) narrowly missed the playoffs in 2011 and play in a Class 4A district this year with Parsons, Girard and Class 4A newcomer Frontenac.
"We've all heard about the bigger, stronger, faster program," Independence head coach Carl Boldra. "When we started this summer, we were little, slower and weaker."