Weekly Spring Sports Update-Week 3

“The South meet was a lot closer,” Glazer said. “We didn’t have have our top varsity players but we still managed to win the meet.”

Next week the Lancers will be headed to Topeka on Monday and will play Saint Thomas Aquinas on Tuesday.

Baseball- 
The Lancer baseball team has had three baseball games this past week against Gardner Egerton, Blue Valley Southwest and Shawnee Mission Northwest. The Lancers lost to Northwest while beating Gardner Edgerton and Blue Valley Southwest. The Lancers started off their season 2-1. The Lancers beat Leavenworth at William Jewell college yesterday by a score of 6-1.

“The JV and C team have been working hard all week in practice and are working on getting prepared to play for their first games this saturday,” sophomore varsity player Quinn Appletoft said.

Boys’ Golf- 
The Boys’ Golf team competed last monday at Lionsgate Golf Course. The Lancers competed against 13 other teams with much of the best teams in the state present. In the one day tournament, the Lancers were victorious. Junior Connor Knabe shot a 72, placing second in the tournament.  Senior Conner Schrock had the worst round of his high school career shooting an 87. The Lancers have room for improvement for their next tournament with Conner Schrock, one of their top seniors, scoring an 87, well above his average.

“It was great to be able and come out early and get a win this year at a great course,” senior Henry Simpson said. “We played well but definitely not up to our full potential, can’t wait to get everyone going and see how we do once we reach our peak form.”

Girls’ Soccer- 
Early this week, junior Addison Steiner found out that she had torn her MCL and would be out for the rest of the season. Despite this and other injuries, the Lady Lancers were able to pick up a win against Lawrence High on Thursday night. The team hopes to get senior Katie Crawford back in the line-up next week. Crawford has been out with complications from mono and tendonitis. Next week, the team has games against Olathe East and Shawnee Mission North. The season is just getting started, and with Steiner’s injury, head coach Jamie Kelly is looking for some of his seniors to rise to the challenge.

“Because of the injury to Addison, now would be the time for other players like Katie Crawford and Bahar Barani to step up. Even though Addison was out last year for five games with a concussion, we were still able to win four of the five games. I’m just really expecting to see some new and returning players step up and show me what they can do,” said Kelly.

Softball- 
The Lancers opened the season on Tuesday with a double-header against Leavenworth. The team came away with two large victories, winning 17-0 and 11-1. First year Head Coach Vaughan stressed the importance of fundamentals during the first two weeks of practice — focusing on basic fielding and plate adjustments. The team entered their first games with strong core skills and easily defeated Leavenworth. East players feel confident after their convincing victories and are looking to build on this success by working as a team.

“We have great team chemistry, but we need to make sure we trust everyone to do their role, especially the players at new positions,” said senior Morgan Satterlee.

The team is looking strong as ever and hopes to extend its success throughout the season.

Track:

Sprints/Hurdlers- 
Both the boys’ and girls’ sprinters and hurdlers did well at the SME Quad on Tuesday. With both East teams winning the meet overall it couldn’t have been done without the points of the sprinters and hurdlers.

On the boys’ side in the 400 Meter Dash senior Joe Lewis and junior Juan Ramos were only milliseconds apart running a 51.91 and a 51.99 placing second and third respectively. The boys’ 1600 Sprint Medley took first place with a team of Connor Rellihan, Clint Dunn, Tucker Styrkowicz and Jake McCoy. Junior Devin Burton placed first in the 300 Meter Hurdles running a 41.49. Juniors Sam Stewart and Connor Rellihan ran their 200 Meter Dash finishing only two hundredths of a second apart running a 23.73 and 23.75 respectively. In the last event of the evening, the boys’ 4×400 Meter Relay the SME team took first with a team of Juan Ramos, Joe Lewis, Carter Olander and Clint Dunn.

The East girls’ team scored 94 points overall with second place only receiving 70.50. Chloe Stradinger placed first in both the 100 and 300 Meter Hurdles running a 16.57 and 49.68. Seniors Abby Dunn and Toni Aguiar both placed first in their events the 400 Meter Dash and 200 Meter Dash running a 1:00.69 and a 26.67 respectively. Lastly, the girls’ 4×400 Meter Relay won by a landslide running a 4:12.50 with a team of Toni Aguiar, Abby Dunn, Annie Kuklenski and Grace Quinlan.

Long Distance-
Boys’ and girls’ long distance had a strong showing at last Tuesday’s 54th annual Quad hosted by Shawnee Mission East. The girls’ 4×800 relay took third place while the boys’ relay took 1st with an 8:17.92, beating the second place team by almost 12 seconds.

In the mile, junior Mitch Kaskie took second place running a 4:38.80, this time was only 4 seconds off his personal best. Kaskie placed second behind Shawnee Mission West’s Jonah Heng who ran a blazing 4.26.18 (Heng placed 8th at this year’s state cross country meet).

Sophomores Grace Quinlan and Annie Kuklenski took first and second respectively in the open 800. On the boy’s side, Seniors Mitch Daniel, Blake Hill and Evan Nichols took second, third and fourth respectively.

The complete Quad results are posted on SME’s track website.

Field Events-
Grace Pickell broke the school record in the high jump with a 5 feet 8’ inch leap at the SME Quad on Tuesday. Several other field event athletes also earned points for the team. Alic Erpelding won pole vault, Ben Williams won the high jump and Bennett Uhl won the discus. Myisha Heinen and Nick Pirotte took second in the javelin. Field athletes that qualified will be competing in the SM South meet on Saturday.

Lacrosse- 
On Tuesday, the Lancers traveled out to Lee’s Summit North to face the Broncos on their home turf. While the Lancers were victorious by a score of 13-3, the team was not content with the score.  East had 43 shots on goal, and only scored 13 goals.  The highlight of the night was the Lancer defense, that allowed only 8 shots on goal, and 3 to hit the back of the net.  Tonight, East takes on Blue Valley West at home.  The Lancers beat the Jaguars in an earlier meeting at the Kansas City jamboree by the score of 4-3.  Tuesday’s victory moved the Lancers up to 2-0 overall, as well as 2-0 in league play.

Girls’ Lacrosse- 
Last Saturday, March 24th, the girls lacrosse team took on Lee Summit at SME. JV lost the game but Varsity won 12-6. Last Tuesday the 27th, the Varsity team beat Lee Summit West 9-4. The girls continue to practice at Franklin Park Monday and Wednesday from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. and Tuesday and Thursday from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m.

“Since Varsity is 2-0 right now and JV is 1-1 I think we are doing really well as a team and we are definitely still progressing.” Senior Caroline Wooldridge said.

Girls’ Swim and Dive- 
Yesterday,  the girls swim and dive team took on the Blue Valley West Jaguars and the Bishop Miege Mustangs and the Blue Valley Tigers. Next week, half of the varsity team is swimming at the Olathe Northwest Invitational on April 6. The other half of the varsity team are traveling to the Wichita Northwest Invitational on April 7.

“I’m looking forward to our big meets at the end of the year, we work all season for league and state and we’re hoping that we can keep going for our 8th year consecutive league title. I’m nervous about state this year with new girls that originally didn’t swim are now on the team so there is more talent for us to compete with this year. We have been working even harder this year to do well at state.” Senior Hallie Beck