While it’s true that the Emporia High girls and boys basketball teams have played games inside the Emporia city limits, neither team has had what could be considered an actual “home” game.
So far this season, the closest the Spartans and Lady Spartans have come to playing any home games came when both squads played in the Paul Terry Classic at White Auditorium.
But that all changes tonight, as Emporia plays host to Junction City in the first games of the season at the EHS gymnasium.
“It’s the first home game, and it should be a lot of fun,” guard Alli Armitage said. “It’s our gym, it’s our school, and we have to defend it. It’s going to be a lot different than the Civic Auditorium. We’re all pretty excited about it.”
“It’s going to be nice, because that’s the fun part of high school athletics — playing in your hometown in front of you student body,” EHS boys coach Rick Bloomquist said. “Hopefully, people will come out to watch the team play, not only us boys, but also the girls. We’re anxious to play on our home floor.”
Playing at home doesn’t mean the going gets easier, though. The Lady Spartans (3-3, 1-2) will face an undefeated Junction City squad (7-0, 3-0 Centennial League) ranked No. 3 in Class 6A. The Lady Jays’ latest victory came on Tuesday with a 57-27 thrashing of previously undefeated Hayden.
There’s no doubting where Junction City turns to when it needs points — Alex and Dani Hoover. The sisters are the top two leading scorers for the Lady Jays, and each has the potential to put up big numbers each night. Against Hayden, Alex — the defending Centennial League MVP — led all scorers with 17 points, while Dani added 10 points to go along with team highs in rebounds (6), assists (5), steals (3) and blocks (2).
“Obviously, their other kids do a lot of things well too, but the Hoovers are special kids in their abilities to score the ball,” EHS girls coach Bill Nienstedt said. “They’re just good, good basketball players.
“You’ve got to do a good job on them if you’re going to beat Junction City, but the other part of it is making sure that they don’t create easy scoring opportunities for their teammates with their dribble penetration.”
For the Lady Spartans, the formula has been quite simple. Defend and rebound the ball well, and the results have been favorable. It’s when the Lady Spartans take a night off in those areas that they struggle.
“The one thing that I think is a common denominator in the down parts of our ups and downs is when we’ve lost, we didn’t defend and rebound well,” Nienstedt said. “Offensively, we’ve been at least adequate each night, and some nights we’ve been really, really good. But we’ve got to get ourselves to a point where we can defend consistently.”
The two games that best detail those statistical extremes are a 57-44 victory over No. 5-ranked Blue Valley and a 64-62 overtime loss to Topeka West, which had a 2-3 record at the time.
Against Blue Valley, Emporia out-rebounded the Lady Jaguars and forced 17 turnovers to just 6 of its own, which allowed for the upset. Against Topeka West, the Lady Chargers out-rebounded the Lady Spartans, 44-32 — including 21-9 in the second half — and EHS let a 10-point second-half lead slip away before falling in overtime.
Armitage said games like the one against Blue Valley proved what the team is capable of, and that games like the one against the Lady Jaguars have to be expected.
“We played really well then, but I think we can play a lot better,” Armitage said. “We just have to play tougher defense and be tough mentally. We have to work as hard as we did against Blue Valley.”
The EHS boys are coming off a 73-55 defeat at the hands of No. 1-ranked Highland Park on Tuesday, but things were not all bad against the Scots. Against a Highland Park team that has two Division I signees in guard Lamont Austin and forward Kyle Weems plus two others who have the potential to sign at the major college level, the Spartans committed just nine turnovers, the result of playing more as a team, Bloomquist said.
“Against a team like that, with those kind of guards who play man-to-man defense, they want to take it from you. We handled the ball well, we handled their pressure well and we handled their defense well,” Bloomquist said. “I saw some efficiency in our offense because of the balance and the inside-outside game, I saw us make the first easiest pass that we weren’t getting before. If we can carry that over the rest of the year, we’re going to be OK.”
The trick now becomes carrying that teamwork and effort into the next game — a matchup with a struggling Junction City squad. The Blue Jays are just 2-5 on the season, 0-3 in the league, and are fighting to keep up with some of the changes first-year coach Charles Glotta has installed.
Regardless of record or past play, though, forward Billy Malone said the Spartans cannot simply show up and expect to win against the Blue Jays.
“They’re kind of down right now, but they’re not a team to overlook,” Malone said. “We have to respect them and respect all their players. We have to be ready for everything.”
Added Bloomquist: “That light bulb can click on at any time. I don’t want to be the guinea pig. We don’t want to be the one it works on.”