KSHSAA releases post season assignments

The Kansas State High School Activities Association released post-season assignments for basketball and wrestling Monday morning. The impact of the split of Class 4A into two divisions for basketball was evident right away.

This summer, the majority of Class 4A schools, mostly the smaller ones, voted to split the classification into two divisions for some sports, basketball among them. Wrestling was not split as a survey of coaches revealed that the majority felt there was no need for a split in that sport.

Fort Scott High's basketball teams have been assigned to a four-team Class 4A-Division I Sub-State at Spring Hill. The other teams there will be Louisburg, Paola and host Spring Hill.

Tiger basketball fans may remember that Fort Scott and Paola faced each other in last season's third-place game at the Class 4A Girls' State Tournament in Salina. This year, those teams -- ranked second and third, respectively by the Kansas Basketball Coaches Association in a pre-season poll also released Monday --could meet in that Sub-State. Louisburg is ranked No. 10, meaning three of the top 10 teams in the poll are in the same Sub-State.

With the split of Class 4A into two divisions, there are 32 teams in each division. This means the eight Sub-States in both divisions have just four teams each. Every game in those Sub-States will be played on the home court of the designated host. Girls' semifinals will be played Thursday, March 6. Boys' semifinals will be held Friday, March 7. Both championship games will be played Saturday, March 8.

Class 4A-Division I Sub-State winners will continue to go to Salina for State Tournament play. Teams in the new Class 4A-Division II will play State at Hartman Arena in Park City, which is just north of Wichita.

Fort Scott's wrestlers will go to a Class 4A Regional Tournament at Burlington on February 21 and 22. Burlington returns to Class 4A this season after a few years in Class 3A.

Since wrestling is not split into divisions, the post-season format remains the same and the Regional field will include 14 other schools, including host Burlington, Baldwin, Chanute, Columbus, Frontenac, Anderson County, Iola, Prairie View, Louisburg, Osawatomie, Ottawa, Paola, Parsons, Carbondale-Santa Fe Trail, and Spring Hill.

Class 4A State will also remain in Salina. This year's tournament will be held February 28 and March 1.

Uniontown's basketball teams see their Sub-State format unchanged as Class 2A has not been split. The Eagles have been assigned to the Yates Center Sub-State, which begins Monday, March 3. The other teams there aside from Uniontown and the host school are Howard-West Elk, Oswego, Oxford, Colgan, Pleasanton and Sedan.

In Class 2A, boys' first-round games will be played Tuesday, March 4 with semifinals on Friday, March 7. Girls' first-round games will be held Monday, March 3 and the semifinals on Thursday, March 6. Championship games will be held on Saturday, March 8.

First-round games in Class 2A will remain at the site of the higher-seeded team with semifinals and finals at the host site.

Basketball assignments for the other SEK teams:

* Labette County, Coffeyville and Independence will play in the Chanute Class 4A-Division I Sub-State.

* Parsons has been assigned to the Andale Class 4A-Division II Sub-State. Andale is between Wichita and Hutchinson. The other teams are Clearwater and Wichita Trinity.

* Pittsburg will be at the Class 5A Sub-State at Kansas City-Turner. In 5A, eight teams are split into two four-team pools. Kansas City schools Turner, Harmon, Schlagle, and Washington will be there with Lenexa St. James, Blue Valley Southwest and St. Thomas Aquinas.