Watch a recording of the boy’s 58-52 victory over Lawrence.

At the game’s tentative start, however, neither side jumped out to a big lead. Immediately after the tip-off, East had the initial advantage after the Lancers favor as they gained possession of the ball and junior Vance Wentz sunk a deep field goal to put two points on the board. It appeared to be the perfectly scripted start the Lancers were looking for. But as the first quarter continued, the advantage slowly went to Rockhurst. Players like Kyle Wolf and Clay Guy put points on the board for the Hawklets with deep field goals. Their defensive full court press shut down East, who couldn’t get anything going inside the paint or from the three point line. And as the somewhat anticlimactic and low-scoring first quarter drew to a close, Rockhurst was ahead 8-5. Not at all how East wanted to start the highly anticipated match-up against the Hawklets.
As a matter of fact, Head Coach Shawn Hair has told his team again and again how they need to put up at least 60 points in a game. According to Hair’s philosophy, if you get 60 points you win the game.

The second quarter didn’t push the Lancers much closer to this goal. Juniors like Vance Wentz and Zach Schneider, who normally put up big points from the three point line, were virtually silent. Whether it was jitters or a mental break-down, East wasn’t producing offensively like Hair had hoped for. And for Rockhurst–they did a wonderful job of maintaining. They held on to their lead, lengthened it, and ended the quarter with senior Andrew Kramer sinking a half-court shot to put an exclamation mark on the impressive first half. It was Rockhurst ahead 23-12.

East could never really recover. The third quarter began and the Lancers appeared to become more desperate as time wore on. Wentz, Schneider and even junior Chase Hanna, who normally do well inside and beyond the three point arch, were throwing up desperation three pointers from way outside that weren’t falling. Credit is due, of course, to the Hawklets who had players scoring from all over their roster. Role players like Wolf and senior Pat Roberts held their own, while lesser-known junior Connor Kuhlman was involved in almost every scoring opportunity. An even offensive and defensive attack helped Rockhurst gain a convincing lead.

The fourth quarter, for the Lancers, was ultimately more like a funeral–in the sense that East fans and players looked to be mourning something that was already dead. Rockhurst held a commanding lead and didn’t let up; they won the game 54-28 when it was all said and done. East fans got excited when Hair put senior Chris Heady, who has been with the program since his freshman year, in the game but there were not a lot of highlights otherwise. However, even with the defeat, Lancer fans left the court by singing the school song. Obviously, they’ll be ready to do it all again next year.

Watch a recording of the JV boys 44-42 victory over Rockhurst.

Watch a recording of the Varsity boys 54-28 loss to Rockhurst.

The Varsity Lancer Dancer’s Halftime Dance

To view more photos click here.

In the second round of the 48^th Annual McPherson Invitational Tournament, the Lancers fell to the hometown Bullpups 60-51. From the beginning of the game, Coach Shawn Hair’s team was unable to establish any rhythm on the offensive end. In a pregame interview, Hair said the Lancers would have to take care of the ball and not let the turnovers get the best of them. This was not the case however, as the Lancers turned the ball over 26 times.

The second quarter was characterized by more offensive woes from the Lancers as they continued to struggle with turnovers. McPherson senior guard Jordan Hart provided most of their offensive firepower. None of the Lancer defenders seemed able to contain him. After struggling to retain quality offensive possessions, senior guard Andy Hiett led an 11-5 Lancer run to end the quarter. Going into halftime, East trailed 29-20.

After carrying the momentum into halftime, the Lancers found themselves down 15 early in the third quarter. Juniors Vance Wentz and Zach Schneider proved to be the key sources of offense for East again as they fueled a comeback to bring the Lancers within one. Key assists from senior guards Henry Simpson and Alex Schoegler helped fuel the run as well. Late in the quarter, Schneider hit three free throws to give the Lancers a one point lead, their first of the game.

Coming into the fourth quarter, the Lancers looked to be controlling the game. McPherson was able to pick up the intensity on the defensive side and force more Lancer turnovers. Hart continued to give the Bullpups solid offense and got some help inside from junior Keaton Sorenson. After East gave up a few buckets and failed to convert on the offensive end, McPherson finally pulled away.

The Lancers drop to 6-4 on the season, and will play a tough Lawrence Free State team in the 3^rd place game tomorrow at 5:30. Hair’s team will be looking to rebound against a Sunflower League opponent who fell just short of the tournament’s championship.

Points by Player:

Wentz: 20

Schneider: 14

Hiett: 10

Tuttle: 4

Simpson: 2

Sutherland: 1

]]> http://smeharbinger.net/sports/live-broadcast-boys-basketball-vs-mcpherson-high/feed 0 http://smeharbinger.net/sports/weekly-winter-sports-update-week-2 http://smeharbinger.net/sports/weekly-winter-sports-update-week-2#comments Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:21:34 +0000 The Harbinger Online Staff http://smeharbinger.net/?p=38993 Swimming:  
Last week the Lancer’s won their duel meet against reigning state champion, Blue Valley North, in what was an extremely close meet.“Going in we knew we could we win but all of the [Blue Valley] North kids thought that they had the meet,” senior Jack Haverty said. “The entire meet their was so much energy, I’ve never heard the pool that loud. In all of the relays we were underdogs but we came out victorious in all of them.”

The second quarter was very similar to the first with sloppy Lancer offense and continuous turnovers. Senior Alex Schoegler and junior Billy Sutherland found themselves in foul trouble midway through the quarter, forcing them both to take a seat on the bench. Junior Chris Tuttle filled in strong in the paint for Sutherland as he controlled the defensive boards and went 4/4 from the free-throw line. Steadman continued to carry the offensive load for Derby as he played all 16 minutes of the first half. Late in the quarter, the Lancer offense hit its stride as juniors Vance Wentz and Zach Schneider started to heat up. Wentz hit a three to give the Lancers a two-point halftime lead, as the half came to a close the score stood 30-28.

After halftime, the Lancers looked like a completely different team, and immediately took all of the momentum. East outscored Derby 19-6 and opened up a 15-point lead thanks to the shooting of Vance Wentz and inside presence of Zach Schneider. Derby head coach Brett Flory made it clear that they were going to focus their defense on stopping Wentz and Schneider, but they were unsuccessful. The Panthers opted to bench Steadman, and the result was sloppy offense without much rhythm. At the end of the third the Lancers were ahead 49-34.

Before the game, Lancer assistant coach Todd McAtee said that a key for East would be transition offense, and until the fourth quarter this was basically nonexistent. The trio of Lancer senior guards, Schoegler along with Henry Simpson and Andy Hiett forced pressure on the Derby guards which led to a series turnovers and fast-break points. Because of the transition offense and high-percentage shooting, the Lancers ran away with the game in the fourth and at one point held a 30-point lead. The game finished with a score of 79-50, and earned head coach Shawn Hair his 200th win at East.

The Lancers improve to 6-3 on the season as Derby falls to 7-2. Tomorrow, the Lancers face the McPherson Bullpups on their homecourt who are fresh off a win against Maize in the opening round. Be sure to tune in for the broadcast tomorrow at 8:15.

Points By Player:
Wentz- 32
Schneider- 17
Hiett- 7
Tuttle- 6
Hanna- 5
Simpson- 5
Sutherland- 4
Schoegler- 2
Marak- 1

Girls Bball:
The lady Lancer Basketball team plays Shawnee Mission West tonight at 5:30 at East. “Its going to be a really big game because of the rivalry and its also a league game,” Senior Caroline Dodd said.  “Because we beat them the first time we played them this year, they are going to be out to get us. We need to be aggressive from the start.”  

Wrestling:

This weekend is an important one for the wrestling team; they will be going to Basehor-Linwood for the Bobcat Invitational. This tournament will be THE toughest the team has all year; even tougher than State. Last year East placed 11th out of 34 teams, and Blaine Hill took first place at the 171 weight class. The tournament will take place over both Friday and Saturday. I’ll be participating if you want me to text you results.

Bowling:

During this past week, the Lancer Bowling team had a match against both KCC and Maranatha. Both the boys and the girls varsity teams placed first at this tri-meet and the Lancers ended up taking first place overall. With two upcoming matches this week, the Lancers hope to keep their winning streak alive.

“Next week we are going to be against Shawnee Mission South and Olathe East on Tuesday,” says Junior Dee Dee Guthrie, “On Thursday we bowl against both Shawnee Mission West and Leavenworth High School.”

Boys Bball:

The Boys’ basketball team got back on the right track this week and broke their two game skid after winning their first league game on Tuesday against Olathe North. The win made the Lancers 1-1 in the league, and 4-3 overall for the season. Tonight, they take on rival SM West to avenge their early December loss, a heartbreaker that went down to the wire. Head Coach Shawn Hair told the team at practice last night the loss to the Vikings still stings, and added, “If we have any chance at winning the league, we need to win tomorrow night.”  Injuries: On the JV level, C/F Lucas Jones is ruled out until the middle of Feb. after fracturing his wrist in practice. Center Chris Tuttle suffered a shoulder injury during practice yesterday and sat out most of practice. No status is known whether he will play or not.

Girls Game Wrap Up

>>By Andrew McKittrick

Watch a recording of the Lancer’s 46-26 victory over SM West.

Boys Game Wrap Up

>>By Will Webber

Girls’ game:

Boys’ game:

Kat Buchanan | Harbinger Online

These recent events in the media are only the jumping-off point for the conversation that administrators, students and professionals are having concerning students’ online conduct.

“I really think that if people become so aware of the negative side of social networking, it will implode itself–because no one will want to do it,” principal Karl Krawitz said. “I think people will back away from doing it, because there’s nothing out there to make them feel good about the way they can protect themselves.”

Dr. Krawitz has taken interest in the current lack of social media education among high school students for the upcoming spring semester. Dr. Krawitz said the administration has been sending out emails in hopes of bringing specialists into the school to present a new perspective on the world of social media, due to students’ lack of knowledge on acceptable online conduct.

“I think [students] somewhat still think that they’re confined in this vacuum that’s somewhat safe within the framework of individuals who they’re communicating with,” Dr. Krawitz said. “But it only takes one person to take that [username] and exploit it, at just the drop of a hat. Before you know it, anything you might have been saying about something or somebody is now everywhere.”

Similar to a panel of corporate specialists presented to the PTA this past semester, Dr. Krawitz hopes to bring in professionals to offer insight on social networking and how to operate within personal rights and ethics when using sites like Twitter and Facebook.

“I don’t see any downside to teaching social media etiquette,” attorney advocate at the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) Adam Goldstein said. “The wrinkle is that you always have the right to use bad etiquette. The school has the right to teach you what good etiquette is, but the only way to really learn a lesson like that is to have the option to do it wrong.”

Students do, however, already have that right, according to Goldstein. The online transgression has to be something illegal or an event that stops the operation of school–but, as Goldstein put it, “you can’t legally be punished for being disrespectful online.”

“First Amendment rights exist on social media,” Goldstein continued. “At least at the minimum, you have just as much right [to free speech] as you have sitting at home–legally, it’s the same as saying things out loud.”

Law professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC) June Carbone agrees, insisting that “posting offensive comments on Facebook is much like putting up a sign in your front yard”–it may be frowned upon, but you have every right to do it.

The administration’s concern lies in the fact that students are tweeting from school and school-sponsored events–not from home.

Students at East are allowed access to smart phones and electronic devices during passing period, lunch and before and after school–this, according to Krawitz, doesn’t likely deter students from using such technology during class hours.

“We all know that the system is so grossly abused,” Dr. Krawitz said. “Just like those who get to go out to lunch is abused–but we don’t have the personnel to manage it.”

Social networking during class can hold negative connotations from a student standpoint as well, providing an unwanted distraction from lesson plans. Junior Eden McKissick-Hawley feels that more than anything, social networking during class hours is counterproductive.

“Sometimes I think Twitter is a funny place where kids can say what’s on their mind,” McKissick Hawley said. “But there are a lot of negative repercussions that come when kids are reading what’s on Twitter more than they’re reading what’s in class–I think that, overall, it’s not a helpful thing for schools.”

However, high schools around the United States have taken strides toward embracing social media in the classroom setting, according to the New York Times–one of which is Silver Creek High School in Longmont, Colo.

“Silver Creek unblocked many social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, two years ago after recognizing that they could provide learning opportunities,” Phil Goerner, a librarian at Silver Creek told the New York Times in September.

Dr. Krawitz feels that the goings-on of social networking sites like Facebook are better practiced at home, hoping to keep home matters and school matters separate.

“It’s none of our business,” Dr. Krawitz said. “It’s none of our business what a person says, does, whatever. I think the only time [what a student does outside of school] becomes our business is if it’s happening out there and it’s affecting an individual here–and as a result of what’s said out there, it turns into something real, a disagreement here.”

His care for the matter does, however, detail the conduct of students when representing or reflecting the student body as a whole in any given setting.

“If they’re representing the school–anywhere, at any time–especially during the day hours, then those things fall under the guidelines of the school,” Dr. Krawitz said. “Whether it’s here in the actual building or somewhere else.”

Carbone says while there isn’t necessarily a concern with “image” when it comes to the reflection of the school, there is still the matter of correct behavior.

“I think that schools have some ability to insist on a behavior code for students that emphasizes consideration for others and appropriate behavior in public settings,” Carbone said.

The potential of actually writing up a social media policy–outlining rules for web usage during school hours and events–is not on the administration’s to-do list, according to Dr. Krawitz, due mainly to a lack of personnel and manageable technology. Students’ rights advocates also show opposition to a potential content-tracking system that would keep social networking content under the administration’s eye during school hours.

“The school can monitor whatever it wants, although, frankly, I find the idea of grown people spending time doing nothing but reading teenagers’ social media sites a little creepy,” Goldstein said. “But, if that’s what they think the best use of their time is, they are legally entitled to do it.”

The idea of a lockdown on web surfing receives negative responses from the students involved, as well as the administrators and professionals.

“I think if I knew that my school was looking over my shoulder at what I was saying online, I’d probably be more careful–but I’d also think that that’s not their place,” McKissick-Hawley said.

Dr. Krawitz is also opposed to strict monitoring of networking content. He feels that while implementing a social media policy for the district or even East is out of reach, the more effective way to enforce change is to educate the student body on the consequences associated with social media usage, to the best of the administration’s ability.

“Education’s job is to help students understand what they’re getting into,” Dr. Krawitz said.

Dr. Krawitz hopes to further the wave of social media knowledge by adding the topic to class curriculum.

“I could see it becoming a part of our Legal Studies program,” Dr. Krawitz said. “In all essence, because of the nature of it, I think it probably needs to be.”

Pt. 1

Pt. 2

Day One – Nov. 29

Day Two – Nov. 30

Day Three – Dec. 1

In August of this year, Basehor-Linwood School District, located in eastern Kansas, announced a new policy which prevented the publishing of memorials in both newspapers and yearbooks. The policy, which was later revised to comply with Kansas laws, included special student press coverage of student deaths under the list of tributes deemed inappropriate.

In an effort to change the new policy, Student Press Law Center and Kansas Scholastic Press Association, represented by Attorney Mark Johnson, met with members of the school board to inform them of the violations of the Kansas Student Publications Act. Nicole Hill, a writer at SPLC felt it was absolutely necessary to inform Basehor-Linwood that the policies were not only in violation of the constitutional rights given to the students, but were also against Kansas law.

“The policy did a number of things, one of the most concerning to us was that it limited newspaper, yearbook or any other publication from running dedication pages to classmates who had died,” Hill said. “They could still run an obituary, but not dedicate a page or article.”

The school district itself stated it was merely trying to have a plan in place to prevent against any liabilities that may arise. The president of the Basehor-Linwood School Board, Dayna Miller, stresses that the policy put in place was not unique in the state of Kansas.

“The Superintendent went out and found several memorial policies of other school boards in the state and so that is where this original policy came from,” Miller said. “We looked at it with our lawyers and the Kansas Association of School Boards before proposing it. He didn’t just decide one day to do this.”

Kansas is one of only eight states that extends additional protection to student journalists. When students on the Harbinger at SM East decided to publish an issue dealing primarily with the taboo subject of sex, they met little opposition. The administration was consulted, not for permission, but for support. Kat Buchanan, Co-Editor-in-Chief of the school’s print publication, felt that it would be reassuring to have backing from the district.

“It’s nice to have the administration behind us,” Buchanan said. “If parents, teachers or students came raging toward us or the staff wondering why we did what we did, we knew we had support from the school, not just our advisor.”

Many states offer little to no explicit legal protection for their students. At Louis D. Brandeis High School in San Antonio, Tex., members of the student publication, The BluePrint, are required by school officials to submit all work for review.

“We give them PDFs of the newspaper before we send it to press and they review it for two days and if they need to then they cut it,” Editor-in-Chief Tina Montemayor said. “Any topics that could reflect badly on the school or be considered controversial do not make it past review.”

Last year, the BluePrint decided to produce an article on hookah but it was immediately shut down.

“We couldn’t do anything about hookah even though the people we interviewed were eighteen and were talking about the negative effects of tobacco,” Montemayor said. “It’s hard to get them on our side about issues like that.”

After discussion with SPLC and KSPA, Basehor-Linwood revised its policy to allow for the publishing of dedications and memorials in student publications following the death of a fellow student. The new policy, according to district superintendent David Howard, addresses all of the concerns expressed by the school board while still complying with Kansas press law.

“The use of our building and grounds for memorial services was our main concern” Howard said. “We want to make sure we handle it consistently from year to year and I think the policy we have now allows us to do that without infringing on our students’ press rights.”

View Student Press Rights in a full screen map

Information from SPLC.

Watch a recording of the live broadcast here.

If you are having trouble viewing the recording, click here.

Shawnee Mission West Tournament
Max Werner and Seth Myers: 4th place/quarterfinals (Debate Coaches Invitational bid)

Sumner High School Tournament
Justin Armer and Sam Bernard: 5th place
David McClannahan and Jerimiah Clark: Honorable Mention