Conway Springs boys to play in third state tournament since 1999 after winning Sedgwick sub-state
Conway Springs boys get to the state basketball tournament for the first time since 2012.
By Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — Here is an interesting piece of trivia. The last two times the Conway Springs boys got to a state tournament were in 1999 and 2012. Both came in years when Conway Springs also won a state championship in football.
Conway Springs is a football school; nobody will deny it. But now, it is also a basketball school after Conway Springs beat Whitewater-Remington 43-32 to win the Sedgwick sub-state Saturday. The Cardinals will now advance to the Class 2A State Boys Basketball Tournament in Dodge City on Thursday at 2 p.m. Conway Springs (15-8), an eighth seed, will battle Lyndon (23-0), the top seed.
Coincidentally, Lyndon is also a state championship in football – winning the Class 1A Div. 1 eight-man crown on the same snowy day in November. However, Lyndon can’t be considered a football or a basketball school. It is a school on a serious athletic roll in 2023-24, especially with Tanner Heckel on the roster. He just signed up to be a football safety for the University of Illinois and can play a mean game of basketball as well.
“Maybe our lack of state tournament experience is showing here, but we don’t care who we are playing,” said Paul Lange, Conway Springs boys’ basketball coach. “We have a healthy respect for them, just as we do Sterling, Moundridge, and all the other teams in the tournament. We’ll prepare for the game in front of us and worry about us. That’s what we can control.”
Conway Springs went 3-0 in the sub-state tournament, defeating Belle Plaine 47-22, Wichita Independent 48-37, and Remington in the championship in a defensive showdown.
In the victory, Conway Springs got 14 points from Taylor Wykes and 10 from Nash Johnson to secure the victory. Other scorers were Eli Benge 8, Eli Howard 4, Logan Osner 4, and Grant Fisher 2. The Cardinals were buoyed by Wykes, who went 5-of-6 from the line in the fourth quarter.
“We knew we were going to have to play great defense because that is their calling card as well,” Lange said. “We knew we couldn’t give them any free points if we were going to have a chance. It also helped when our guys hit a few shots. Remington gave our shooters a couple of open looks we were able to cash in.”
It was an interesting sub-state. When the pairings came out, Lange thought it was one that four or five teams could legitimately win. Wichita Classical was the top seed with just three schools. However, it was eliminated in the semifinals after feasting all year on Class 1A schools.
Lange concludes:
“I’ll just add that I’m proud of our guys. It’s really about them. They’re all pretty much multi-sport athletes in a small school and the grind can be grueling at times. We took our lumps last season and the guys still showed up to put in the work last summer. They have been rewarded for that effort with a sub-state championship and maybe more to come.”
