Magazine

Vol. 1 Ed. 2, Summer 2011

Overdue! Inside:Long time El Dorado High School cross country coach retires

House breaks state record, headed to KU

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Bluestem baseball advances to state. Working to remove negative stigma.

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OZ & EndsKyrstie Ehm experienced Europe on U . S. Select basketball team

By Ethan Denton To Europe, then back home to work as a life-guard, then on to Hutchin-son. In between it all, Kyrstie Ehm keeps a busy life with basketball leading the way. The 2011 graduate of Circle High School will be doing a lot this summer, highlighted by a trip with a U.S. Select basketball team that played games in Austria, Germany and Italy during a 17-day period this month. Ehm is the only participant from Kansas on this particular team. When Ehm returned home she resumed her job as a lifeguard at the Towanda Municipal Pool. She has been a lifeguard for three years and it gives her an opportunity to hang out with friends. But once the summer is concluded she will pack her bags and head over to Hutchinson Community College where she has signed to play for the Blue Dragons. Before that however, she has some business to take

care of in Europe. The U.S. team that Ehm will play for is coached by Mike Watkins who is a native of Hartford, a town about 15 miles southeast of Emporia. Ehm’s talents caught the eye of Watkins’ son, a coach at Wichita In-dependent. They matched up against Circle last De-cember. He then referred Ehm to his father, who invited her to play on his U.S. team. Ehm’s team will be in Europe starting June 12th, and conclude the trip on the 28th. Ehm has yet to set foot outside the United States, so the trip will provide a whole new experience for her.“I’m not really sure what to expect but it will probably be a little bit of a shock,” Ehm said. “It will be fun to see how other countries play basketball and see how other countries’ life styles are.” Ehm will be joining a very successful program in Hutchinson. Coach John Ontjes has led the Blue Dragons to a 114-21

record in four seasons as head coach. For Ehm, her decision came down to Hutchinson or Barton County. “They (Hutchinson) have really good team chem-istry,” Ehm said. “When I watched them, I felt that I could fit better with their program.” Ehm got the opportunity to play basketball on the college level thanks to her outstanding performances on the high school level, as she participated in basketball, volleyball, and track. “I really like volleyball, but once I started get-ting really serious about basketball, I just played basketball 24/7 and had no time to play volleyball outside of our school season,” Ehm said. While basketball and volleyball are Ehm’s two favorite sports to play, she was not a fan of track, but she participated for other purposes. “Track was more to keep me in shape,” Ehm said. continued page 15

by John Giffin Stepping into the El Dorado High School annuls as the first-time, four-time state pole vault champion in school history, Jamie House decided on a whim back in seventh-grade to take up the event. “Me and my friend were doing long-jump and were like, ‘Hey you want to try pole vault?’” said the recent EHS graduate House. That non-chalant, snap decision vault-ed the young House to Wildcat legend. Not only has House swept four-years of the 4A state pole vault, recently the University of Kansas bound vaulter jumped 12’9 inches June 12 at the Mis-souri Valley/Ozark Associations Border Challenge track meet in Liberty, Mo, a goal she was hoping to set at the State track meet. “My goal since my sophomore year has been to jump the all-time state re-cord,” said House prior to 4A regionals and state. Her previous high was 12’ 5”. The recent spike in her personal record (which is now a Kansas high school aged girls’ record) can be directly at-tributed to her recent change in vaulting technique. “When I vault, I swing upside down,” said House. “I don’t get all the way up-side down. I shoot my feet out over the bar and land on the bar.” She continued, chuckling, “If I go all

Adjustments lead to state record

House clears the bar during the pole vault event at the Kansas State Track Meet at Cessna Stadium May 28 at Wichita State.

continued page 4

House, from page 3the way up, than I’ll go up higher. It’s hard to explain in words.” In laymen’s terms she cut her vertical path short by moving her feet horizon-tally, which impeded vast improvements to heights she cleared. House said she also has made adjustments to her take off. “…taking off the ground before the pole hits the box,” she said. “That will give me a lot more momen-tum and allow me to get on a bigger pole.” The fl aws in technique were noticed by El Dorado High School track coach Travis Wyss. “He’s one of the best coaches in the state,” said House. “He knows what he’s doing and he is able to see small things like that to make me better.” However, changing pole-vault technique is not some-thing to be rushed. “Almost everything is muscle memory,” said House. “To change your muscle memory takes time.” In the fall, House will join Wildcat track team-

mate Molly Milbourn as a Jayhawk. House enters her freshman season over two-feet shy of KU’s all-time womens’ vaulter Amy Lin-nen’s 2005 NCAA Outdoor Championship jump of 14’10.25.” House chose Kansas over Wichita State and Kent State based on a life-long love of KU and the distance from home. “It’s close to home, but not too close.” said House. “I have a couple-hour drive, so I can come home if I need to, but I still have my space.” Not only a champion of skies, House also named an all-Ark Valley Chish-olm Trail League Division 3 second-team basketball player, was a member of the Wildcat volleyball team and graduated from El Dorado with a 4.0. grade point aver-age. “I’ve enjoyed being around the teams,” she said. “It’s kind of different. It’s a lot fun having teammates around to push you and work for them. Whereas in pole vaulting I only work for myself.”

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Keeping trackArea athletes compete at state meet

Casey NightengaleEl Dorado High School

Stephen Howard Eureka High School

photo courtesy of

Jamie BellFlinthills High School

photo courtesy of

photo courtesy of photo courtesy of

Alex GardinerCircle High School

Chelsea FullertonFlinthills High School

Janelle ReinartBluestem High School

Molly MilbournEl Dorado High School

Extinguishing stigma

Ryan Bevan rounds third during Bluestem’s run to a 3A regional championship and a birth at state. Bevan is part of a group of seniors that won two games in their sophomore season.

Bluestem’s hoping trip to state is a building block for success in all sports

by John Giffin Stigma. Different schools for different rea-sons have it. Bluestem is one of the most famous cases of a negative stigma when it comes to success in athletics. And for good reason. The Lions football team pieced together the second-longest losing streak in Kansas High School football history racking up 69 straight losses. The streak ended with a 15-12 vic-tory over Belle Plaine on Sept. 19, 2008. But in May 2011, a group of young men from in or around Leon, Kan. de-cided to fulfill a dream while putting to rest talk of the Bluestem stigma. The No 1 seed Bluestem baseball

team hosted and swept the 3A base-ball regional defeating 2010 giant-killer Douglass 12-2 in the semifinal, followed by an 11-1 drubbing of Caney Valley. . The No. 7 seed Lions challenged the No. 2 seed in the 3A state playoffs in Manhattan, falling to 20-3 Wellsville 7-6. “This is not just big for baseball program, but its big for our school and community, just to be successful. Just to change the attitude of winning” said Bluestem head baseball coach Mark Womacks. He continued, “That’s incredible. To go from two wins these guys sopho-more year, one they’re freshman year, and by the time we’re seniors, we’re going to State.”

That group of seniors included Ryan Bevan, Justice Edwards, Dalton Be-van and Daniel Davis. “It feels good because this school has been undocked for a long-time,” said an injured Davis. “It feels good to put Bluestem on the map for baseball again.” “We came together as a team these last two games,” said Edwards after the home regional championship. “We struggled early on in the season, but we came around and now we’re going to State.” “It’s awesome,” said Ryan Bevan “I don’t even know what to say right now.” “We just started hitting the ball. It all come together,” said Dalton Bevan.-john@ybrsports.net

Regional RivalsEl Dorado, Circle face off in Winfield Regionals

Brett TunnellCircle High School

Milton GoodEl Dorado High School

Kanyon KinderCircle High School

Aaron RiffleEl Dorado High School

Qunton MorganEl Dorado High School

Adam RonnebaumCircle High School

Zachary TurnerEl Dorado High School

Lasting Legacy

El Dorado High’s Ron Koppenhaver retires from coaching after 23 years

by John Giffin When it comes to the sport of distance running in El Dorado, Kan., there is only on way one would have to de-scribe 23-year El Dorado High School cross-country coach Ron Koppenhaver. Icon.But this icon’s coaching career ends with cruel irony. “I have a terminal disease,” said Kop-penhaver. “It’s a blood disorder called Mito Fibrosis. It’s similar to leukemia, but a little different.” “When I first noticed it was about five-years ago.” Said Koppenhaver. I just couldn’t run anymore. I was always used to running for my health and to run with my kids. I just couldn’t, I’d run a 100 meters than stop. It seems it just progresses a little bit every year.” He continued, “I can’t even run three meters now. I lost basically all my muscle mass. I’m very, very weak. I have to ask my wife to open containers for me.”

Slow deterioration from the disease has forced Koppenhaver to hang up the sneakers after a career in which he not only saw the growth in cross country and track, but especially women’s athletics. Starting his coaching career as the Athletic Director at “a small Chris-tian college in Virginia” Koppenhaver quickly built a cross country program that competed immediately. In the first seven years, the team won 65 consecutive meets and two Virginia state championships, despite Koppen-haver entering the job with no competi-tive running experience. “I had started running, basically, for my own health after graduating from college,” he said . “I enjoyed distance running and found some kids who enjoyed distance running and were willing to do anything I asked them to do.” Boys’ programs were the only pro-grams allowed, something Koppen-

haver didn’t understand. “At that time in Virginia, there were very few sports girls participated in,” said Koppenhaver. “They were not supposed to be athletes, just cheerlead-ers I guess.” During his time in Virginia, Koppen-haver managed to organize an annual women’s track and field competition. Koppenhaver then took over the head men’s basketball coaching position at Bethel College in Newton, Kan. and landed in El Dorado eight years later.He came to El Dorado in1986-87 as an assistant basketball coach and also agreed to coach tennis. “Not really my strength,” said Kop-penhaver. A year later he was back in charge of a cross-country program. After another year, he landed the distance running coaching position for Wildcat track. Koppenhaver was handed a gift in his first season as cross country coach with undefeated 5A state champion Chris continued page 10

Towner. But his experience had provid-ed him with the correct way to handle the young talent. “I knew Chris had an awful lot of knowledge on how he needed to train,” he said. “We worked together. I let him certainly have some say and plan some work outs. He generally did more than what the other kids did.” While coaching some incredibly talented boys’ runners, the rookie high school coach had a challenge building the girls’ team. In Koppenhaver’s first year, two girls ran cross-country. In 1988-89 the Lady Wildcat runners qualified for state and placed eighth. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s the Lady Wildcats never finished below third, but never won gold. The next Wildcat individual cham-pion was from the boys’ team, Shawn Bennington in 1992. The boys finished second overall that season. No one on the girls’ side could seem to break into that first-place state spot, including Stephanie Clark. The future all-academic Big 12 per-former, qualified all four years for state, but never came out on top. Clark did win gold in the 3200 at state in track. After Clark came an influx of talent on the girls side that won two consecutive state 5A team titles. In 1996, three of the top five run-ners came from El Dorado, to give the Lady Wildcats their first team 5A state championship. They repeated in 97, but had problems in 98 adjusting to a new classification. “We were really strong.” Koppenhaver said about 1997. “Won every meet by a huge margin. Nobody came close to us all year, including the 5 and 6A teams we competed against in several meets, including our own. Beat 6A power-house Shawnee Mission Northwest. League meet, 7 out of top 8. We won state very easily that year.” El Dorado moved to 4A in 1998. This was a move that did not serve cross-country well at first. Inexperience at the new course in Wamego was one

contributing factor to the performance at state. “Many times when you compare the times at state of 4A, 5A and 6A, 4A is always better,” said Koppenhaver.El Dorado won its third state title and first 4A title in 2000. In 2006 Andrew Wagner became Koppenhaver’s first 4A boys’ individual champ. Molly Milbourn was the girls’ first as a sopho-more in 2008. Most notably in track, Kansas senior Laura Nightengale and 2008 EHS graduate holds the state record for the 800 and Casey Nightengale is a mem-ber of the two-time 4A state champion 4x800 team (2010, 2011). Clearly Koppenhaver has a tremen-dous passion for his chosen profession and a memory of details past that only came from an individual dedicated to the student-athletes. In fact, Koppenhaver suffered physi-cally through the past cross-country and track seasons because his retire-ment before they graduated “would not be fair to the kids.” Mostly throughout the whole cross-country season, I started thinking I couldn’t continue to do this physically,” said Koppenhaver. “It was just too tough for me.”

But the ole’ coach pressed on, wanting to be around for the outstanding senior class of 2011 he had the pleasure of coaching in the twilight of his career. “They were just too good and had worked too hard to not coach them their senior year,” said Koppenhaver. “I had to do that.” Meanwhile away from the courses: “I have to have blood transfusions quite often, if not I get really, really short of breathe,” said Koppenhaver. “Can’t hardly move around anymore.”Koppenhaver also pointed out, “My liver is enlarged and doesn’t work right. I’ve had to have my stomach drained with fluid a whole bunch of times. It effects all my joints. It affects my muscles.” He also explained his flaw in phy-sique. “I have an enlarged spleen, that’s why it looks like I have a beer belly, but I promise it’s not a beer belly.” Even suffering through all that, Kop-penhaver was ready to hang it up for one determining reason. “I always loved running to different spots on the course running around and encouraging kids,” said Koppenhaver. “I can’t do that at all now.”-john@ybrsports.net

Koppenhaver, from page 9

Koppenhaver poses in front of some of the banners El Dorado has won during his career. Koppenhaver coach track for 22 years and cross-country 23 years.

Spring has SprungAndover hosts the Grizzly football spring game

Utah bound!Butler softball advances to national tournament

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“It really taught me to push myself but I definitely did not like it.” One advantage that Ehm had at Circle was that she was a member of many successful teams both in basketball and volleyball. Most notably, the T-Bird bas-ketball team advanced to the 4A State Tournament in the 2009-10 season. Being a versatile player, Ehm handled the ball as a guard, played the post, or whatever head coach Brian Henry needed her to do. However at Hutchinson, Ehm will be more of a small forward than a post player. “In high school I was a big player in our league, but in college I’ll be a little shrimp out there,” Ehm said. “I wish I was a little bigger so I could play the post (at Hutchin-son). In high school I got stuck playing

more inside than outside and I’m techni-cally a guard.” Besides being on winning teams, Ehm got a lot of help from her parents who both have played college athletics themselves. “They have always been there, helping me and taking me to all the practices, all the tournaments and games,” Ehm said. “If I needed to get to a gym, they found a way to get me there.” Ehm also said she was influenced by former Kansas State Wildcat basketball player Kendra Wecker, who played bas-ketball in Manhattan from 2001-2005. Wecker went on to a career in the WNBA and also played basketball in Europe. As far as Ehm’s future goes once her career in Hutchinson is over, it is no surprise that

anything could happen. “I’m thinking that I want to do pharmacy right now,” Ehm said. “If I stick with that, KU has a pharmacy school and OU has one, but you never know. I’d like to go to a Division 1 school, but if that doesn’t work out then I’ll go to a Division 2.”Like any athlete, Ehm just wants an op-portunity to play. She would even consider leaving the Midwest if the right opportunity presented itself, but home is where her real aspirations lie. “I don’t have a problem with going further away from home, but if I had a choice I would like to stay close just because my parents have always been there and I would want them to be able to watch me.”-ethan@ybrsports.net

Ehm, from page 2

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