by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — For many of the high school teams it is the start of the 2012-13 basketball season. Not so much for the Wellington High School teams, which won’t start playing ball until next Thursday with the Kingman tournament (see schedule below).

In other news, Wellington Middle School basketball teams were hard at work with tougher battles against Augusta on Thursday night than what they played on Tuesday with Haysville.

The Wellington wrestling team opens their season on Saturday.

All the area winter sports news for Nov. 30 are as follows: 

WMS basketball: 

Here are the scores from Thursday’s night games:

Wellington vs. Augusta:

8A boys: Wellington 61 Augusta 45 –  Individual scorers: Connor Burnett 13, Derek Driskell 11, Chaese Hamel 9, Therin Frame 8, Brock Edwards 8, and Carpenter 2.

8B boys: Augusta 40 Wellington 19 – Seyfert 3, Long 6, Wiseman 4, Carpenter 4, Johnson 2.

7A boys: Wellington 50 Augusta 48 – Snipes 22, Phelps 14, Jones 5, Lara 5, Walton 4.

8A girls: Wellington 38 August 25 – Tayland French 15, Lauryn Snipes 13, Brecken Lawrenc 3, Auni Williams 3, Mallory Barker 2, Madi Lewellen 2.

8B girls: Augusta 35 Wellington 19.

7A girls: Augusta 46 Wellington 27 – Avery Rusk 13, Mekenna Adams 7, Gracie Fink 5, Shayland French 2.

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High school basketball:

Five of the seven Sumner County schools will be kicking off their basketball seasons tonight.

This game is traditionally an optional night. Some coaches like to get a game in before the preseason tournament. Others like to kick the season off with a tournament. It’s a personal preference kind of thing.

Wellington usually opens the season with Mulvane, but that game will be played later in the season this year.

Here’s what’s on tap tonight:

Medicine Lodge at Conway Springs — Two Central Plains League teams are playing a non-league opener tonight.

Conway Springs, returning from a state tournament berth from 2011-12, got the devastating news that senior Tanner Wood is out of the season with a shoulder injury from football.

It will be interesting to see how the Cardinal team will respond. The answer to that question will begin tonight. Conway Springs was predicted to finish in the top 10 and be a top three contender in the always tough Central Plains League. That was before the Wood injury announcement last week.

Key players to watch for this year’s Conway Springs boys team are (with comments from Conway Springs head boys basketball coach James O’Brien):

Udall at South Haven — These two teams don’t particularly like one another. Last year, Udall would go on to play for the state championship and ended South Haven’s state tournament aspirations in the regional finals. This year, South Haven is ranked No. 1 in the state.

Udall doesn’t have the horses it did last year, but it should be a tough one for the Cardinals who were in the top five preseason KBCA poll.

On the girls side, Eric Adams makes his debut as head coach of South Haven. Adams, as Wellington basketball fans will know, has been an eighth grade girls basketball coach for a very long time. This is his first high school head coaching debut.

In other Sumner games: 

Caldwell at South Barber

Argonia at Attica

Belle Plaine at Bluestem.

Oxford has a bye.

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The Wellington wrestling team begins its season in El Dorado on Saturday with a preseason tournament.

The Crusaders will be opening under new head coach Mitch McComb, who is the brother of John McComb, who departed to work in the private sector.

Wellington has 27 wrestlers out this year with a good nucleus in the heavyweight and middleweight divisions. But there are some significant holes. The Crusaders are without wrestlers at 113, 170 and 182 pound divisions.

Jason Haydon

Senior Jason Haydon returns as Wellington two-time state placer. He will wrestle at either 152 or 160 pounds. Should be an interesting lineup. Justin Bruns, another senior, is wrestling at 152. While Wellington is empty at some weight classes, that particular weight division is loaded.

Interestingly, Wellington has three wrestlers at the 285 pound heavyweight division, a division usually not filled by a lot of wrestling programs.

Tyson Hodson, Trey Coulter and Miguel Lujan are all vying for a starting  position in that weight class.

Mitch Day and Jeff DeJarnett will be high school assistants for the year.

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The bracket for the Kingman Tournament are as follows: