Fredonia High School selects their next head football coach.

The Yellowjakets named Cherryvale Native Lucas Lanning as their next head football coach. He brings experience at both the high school and college levels. He played football at Independence Community College before finishing his collegiate career at McPherson College, where he earned a degree in recreation. Lanning's coaching career includes stops at Washington High School in Kansas City, Atchison High School, Highland Community College, Bishop LeBlond Catholic High School in Missouri, St. Joseph Truman Middle School, and most recently Cherryvale High School, where he served as defensive backs coach and special teams coordinator.

Fredonia says Lanning is committed to developing student-athletes both on and off the field, emphasizing success in the classroom alongside success in athletics. Lanning and his wife, Whitney, have two daughters and say they are excited to join the Fredonia community. Lanning takes over for former Yellowjackets head coach, Marc Svaty, who took the head coaching job in Liberal.

The NJCAA’s Jayhawk Conference named its baseball Gold Glove award winners yesterday. The award honors the best defensive player at each position in the conference.

Coffeyville Community College had one ballplayer on the list, sophomore second baseman Ethan Foley. This spring, Foley made only 5 errors in 193 total fielding chances, which makes for a 97% fielding percentage.

Neosho County also had a player named to the Jayhawk League Gold Glove team. It’s their sophomore outfielder, Cutter Colvert. He is one of just three players in the entire conference to record a perfect fielding percentage this year, converting 54-of-54 chances.

With the high school sports season in the rearview mirror, local softball players have been recognized with all-conference honors.

In the SEK League, our local softball honorees include Labette County’s Keelie Good, making the first team. She’s joined by Braelyn Mitchell of Parsons with a .520 batting average. IHS had Rylan Swearingen named to the All-SEK second team.

And in the Tri-Valley League, Caney Valley had two selections. Freshman Charli Bush and senior Bryleigh Rigdon were named to the All-League team from the Bullpups.

Cherryvale softball had two players selected: sophomore Addy Boss and junior Harmony John. From Neodesha, the Tri-Valley League honored two freshmen: Hadly Carpenter and Annalee Winters.

And Fredonia softball had a couple of honorable mentions on the all-conference team. Those were junior Kennedy Divietro and sophomore Piper Shinkle.

An old Big 12 rivalry will be renewed this weekend on college baseball’s biggest stage.

Yesterday in Atlanta, the Oklahoma Sooners shocked the country by knocking off #2 Georgia Tech for the second straight time to win the regional championship.

OU found themselves down 7-3 in the 7th inning. They scored the tying run in the ninth inning, and in the 10th, Dayton Tockey sent a home run to center field to walk it off.

It’s Oklahoma’s first regional title since 2022. Their opponent will be none other than KU, which won its regional in Lawrence on Sunday, marking its first-ever regional title.

Oklahoma and Kansas will duke it out in Lawrence starting on Friday for a best-of-3 series to determine who goes to the College World Series in Omaha.

The SEK Conference has named its 2026 high school baseball honorees. Listed below are the selections from each local school, along with their season statistics according to AmyoSport Baseball.

Independence

SEK Player of the Year: Sr. Kamen Sprague (.431, 12 doubles, 2 HR, 27 RBI) (46.1 IP, 1.06 ERA, 43K)

SEK First-Team: Sr. Spencer Crain (.431, 16 RBI, 16BB/3K, 19 SB) (16 IP, 3.06 ERA, 19K)

SEK Second-Team: Sr. Brock Sanders (.329, 22 RBI, 15BB/5K)

Sr. Kellen Lanning (.409, 14 RBI, 16 SB)

Field Kindley

First-Team: Sr. Ryley Robson (.360, 10 RBI, 4 SB) (27.2 IP, 8.35 ERA, 17K)

Second-Team: Sr. Jaxin Hershey (.326, 5 RBI, 5 SB) (24.2 IP, 5.96 ERA, 28K)

Chanute

First-Team: Sr. Brady Alonzo (.382, 10 doubles, 3 triples, 2 HR, 16 RBI) (25.2 IP, 4.64 ERA, 23K)

Sr. Jacob Thompson (.347, 4 triples, 10 RBI, 16 SB) (39.2 IP, 5.29 ERA, 30K)

Jr. Karter Naff (.258, 12 RBI, 7 SB) (15.2IP, 6.70 ERA, 7K)

Labette County

First-Team: Jr. Kam Good (.339, 14 RBI) (2.1 IP, 6.00 ERA)

Second-Team: Sr. Colton Ghering (.328, 5 doubles, 13 RBI) (9.1 IP, 6.75 ERA)

So. Mason Morris (.218, 12 RBI) (29.1 IP, 4.06 ERA, 38K)

Parsons

Second-Team: Sr. Connor Largent (.500, 8 RBI, 12 SB) (18.1 IP, 9.55 ERA, 19K)

Photo Courtesy: Parsons High School Facebook

The 2026 spring high school sports season in Kansas is now in the books.

It concluded with the state track and field meet, which was held in Wichita over the weekend.

Our local schools fared pretty well. Field Kindley finished 20th in 4A for boys, and 15th for girls. Nado senior and future Red Raven Erin Lopez won bronze in the state girls' 100-meter dash and silver in the 200-meter dash.

For the Field Kindley boys, K’Shon Feeling was third in the long jump.

Labette County took home some gold medals. Jamaal Jackson won the state championship in the 400-meter dash in 49.13 seconds. Keegan Stritzke won the shot put, with a throw of 55-3 feet. Labette’s boys team finished 9th.

They were actually tied with Chanute. Both of the Comets medals came in relays: silver in the boys 4x800 and bronze in the girls 4x400.

Parsons finished top-10 in the 4A girls standings. The Lady Vikings brought home two gold medals. Braelyn Hinman-Mitchell is the state champion in the javelin throw with a throw of 140-7 feet. Ayanna Robertson, as a sophomore, won the triple jump with a measurement of 37-8 feet.

Parsons boys earned a silver, that was Brelin Summers in the 110-meter hurdles.

In 3A, Caney Valley finished 11th in the boys and 29th in the girls standings. Three medals in all for the Bullpups at state, all belonging to Simeon Sanchez. He took bronze in the 800-meter run, silver in the 1600-meter run, and bronze in the boys' 3200-meter run.

Finally, Sedan took home a gold medal in 1A. Riley Hubert won the girls high jump, with a mark of 5-4 feet.