What a Weekend
By Michael Ashford
Originally published 01:42 p.m., October 30, 2007
Updated 01:42 p.m., October 30, 2007
Over the past week, I put about 500 miles on my truck traveling across this state of ours to cover a variety of Emporia High school athletic events.
This week had it all. Drama. Excitement. Disappointment. Victories. Defeats. And food.
Here are my observations from the road, the ones that didn’t make it into my stories.
• The Emporia High volleyball team was perhaps the most determined and most inspired team at the State tournament in Topeka on Friday.
I got a chance to really sit and watch every Class 5A team that was there, and there was no denying that the Lady Spartans were the most scrappy and most gutsy team out of the eight that made it to State.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to overcome some teams that simply had some pretty incredible talent.
• When I say incredible talent, I mean it. Though EHS didn’t play either St. Thomas Aquinas or Bishop Miege, I still took in some of those schools’ matches, including their heavyweight bout on Friday, which Miege won in three games. It was impressive.
Those two teams operated like small college programs.
The talent gap between Aquinas and Miege and the other six schools at the State tournament was cavernous.
• Is it sad that I often look forward to traveling out of Emporia just so I can eat at a Chipotle restaurant?
The burrito I had on Friday in Manhattan before Emporia High’s football game against Junction City was quite delicious.
I don’t think it’s too much to ask that we get a Chipotle here in Emporia.
But I digress.
• It can’t be said enough: The stars aligned perfectly for the Emporia High football team on Friday night.
Count me as one of those who thought the Spartans were toast after Junction City scored on a 66-yard touchdown run to make it 33-15 midway through the third quarter.
But to come back and get the victory and then have Manhattan knock off Wichita Heights was one of those unexplained occurrences in sports.
• Has there been a bigger play this season than Mark Kolmer’s blocked punt that Harrison Stone returned for a touchdown?
The Spartans moved the ball on offense all night against Junction City, but they were taking too much time off the clock. EHS needed a quick score to really have a chance at the upset.
That blocked punt and the subsequent touchdown meant the difference between the end of the season and a State playoff berth for EHS.
• I would like to mention the job that Bryce Childs did at quarterback at the end of the game when starter Taylor Euler went out with what appeared to be a slight concussion.
Though his heart probably was racing and his eyes were probably the size of dinner plates, Childs did exactly what he had to do, which was get the ball in Edd Noonan’s hands. Being on the field for the last play in Emporia’s biggest win in years had to be exciting for the sophomore.
• By the way, Edd Noonan is a stud. Plain and simple.
• Every time I go back to Rim Rock Farm in Lawrence for the State cross country meet, I get caught up in thinking about all the great memories I have from when I ran there in high school.
But honestly, none of those memories compare to what I witnessed this past Saturday.
Getting the chance to see the Emporia High boys team cap its season with a State championship and then watching Michaela Reynolds blow the field away for her second State title was pretty remarkable.
• I have never seen a collective group of athletes as dedicated to achieving one goal as the Emporia High boys cross country team was this year.
The mileage those guys piled up over the past year was incredible, and it never was about achieving individual success. The focus always was on winning the team title at State, and their efforts paid off.
This year’s team truly was a special group of young men, the likes of which might not grace Emporia High again for quite some time.
• And finally, you can’t help but cheer for an athlete like Michaela Reynolds. Not only is she a premier runner, but she is an incredible person, one who deserves every ounce of success that comes her way.
Seeing her struggle through her junior year because of illnesses and then watching as she made her determined comeback this season tells more about her character than any State title ever could. I admit I was smiling as she crossed the finish line all alone in first place on Saturday.
It would have been so much fun to see Michaela race against Blue Valley Northwest’s Laura Roxberg, who won her fourth straight Class 6A State title on Saturday. Roxberg is widely considered to be one of the best runners in Kansas high school cross country history, but I wouldn’t have counted Michaela out had the two squared off.