Lancers Look to Stay Undefeated

The Lancers head into a big rivalry game against Shawnee Mission West tonight at 7 p.m. at West. Undefeated after seven games behind the strong play of senior Zach Schneider and sophomore Lucas Jones, the Lancers will try to continue their streak in what seems to be a hopeful season. On the other side, West enters the game 5-2 and 2-1 in league play. West has beaten East at home the past three years and are looking to move up in the 6A state rankings, currently ranked at 10th.

An interesting matchup to watch will be how senior Chase Hanna can guard West best player Jay Tamaat who is a lights out shooter from range. Hanna has guarded the opposing teams best player in most of the previous games.

“He’s a really good scorer and shooter,” Hannah said, “My main focus is just limiting his clean looks and keeping him off the foul line.”

West lost a few key players from last years team, most importantly power forward Mitch Witter who Schneider has had some taough matchups with over the years. After a lineup change by head coach Shawn Hair inserting Connor Knabe into the starting five and moving Vance Wentz over to point guard East has kept up their consistency in putting up points. Look for seniors Jackson Sublette and Connor McGannon to make a spark coming off the bench.

“[We have to] play our game because we are more talented than them,” Schneider said. “If we do that there is no way we should lose.”

East will try to push the ball in transition like usual which they have done consistently this year. Another great strength of this team is free throw shooting- against Rock Bridge and Leavenworth the Lancers had just 3 misses combined on over 50 attempts.

Finally, expect a big crowd on both sides of the ball for tonight’s game. This will be the biggest test for Lancers as far as game environment goes. If either team get’s shaken up by the student section it could decide the game.