Pittsburg wins Martin Rohde All-Sports Award by half-point over Fort Scott

The Martin Rohde All-Sports Memorial Trophy, given annual to the Southeast Kansas League member school which performs the best in all the sports the league offers, was decided by the slimmest margin in the history of the award.

Pittsburg won the award for the sixth time in the past seven seasons. Had either of the Purple Dragons' teams not won the SEK Relays (the track and field championships), they would have finished second. If they had not won either track title, they would have finished third.

League champions in each sport are awarded the maximum number of points that can be handed out in that sport (7 in most cases, but fewer in sports such as soccer in which not all schools have a team). The school finishing last gets one point. Schools receive zeroes when they do not field a team in a sport or can not meet the minimum qualification conditions.

Pittsburg, which won both track titles and the football championship, finished with 65.5 points. Fort Scott, champions of baseball and softball and co-champs in girls' basketball, finished with 65. And Independence, which won girls' tennis, soccer, boys' basketball, boys' golf, and boys' tennis, scored 64.5 points. Last year's champion, Chanute, which won girls' cross country, volleyball and wrestling, scored 61.5 points.

Labette County, champions of boys' cross country and girls' golf, was fifth with 50 points. Coffeyville, which tied with Fort Scott for the girls' basketball title, scored 42 points. Parsons, which did not win any league sport, finished in last place with 29.5 points.

The 1/2-point margin ties the slimmest ever recorded. Pittsburg beat out Chanute for the 2009-10 award, 97.5 to 97, more points possible then because there were nine schools in the league.

The one point separating Pittsburg from third-place Independence is the closest in the award's history. The previous record was 4 1/2 points in 2007-08 when Pittsburg had 81.5 points and third-place Fort Scott scored 77.

The 4-point margin between first and fourth-place Chanute beats out the 7 1/2-point margin between 2006-07 winner Chanute, which had 82 points, and Labette County, which had 74.5 points.

This was Pittsburg's 11th award. Fort Scott has won the award nine times.