Eagles: both teams picked 3rd

PITTSBURG -- Jayhawk-Linn's boys and St. Paul's girls were the picks in Three Rivers League pre-season coaches polls released by KSHQ Radio here Monday.

Uniontown's boys and girls were each picked to finish in third place. The boys received three first-place votes while the girls picked up one.

Jayhawk boys also had three first-place votes as did St. Paul, the coaches' choice to finish in second place. Northeast and TRL newcomer Yates Center each picked up one of the other first-place votes.

The boys' vote was quite close as Jayhawk-Linn (6-2 TRL, 11-10 overall last season) picked up nine top-three votes and 89 total points. St. Paul (4-4, 10-13) had eight top-threes and 86 points and the Eagles (5-3, 14-8) scored seven top-threes and 83 points. Yates Center (10-11 overall), which played in the Tri-Valley League last season, was the only other school with more than one top-three vote and scored 73 points.

Oswego (4-4, 7-13) was voted fifth with 59 points, one spot ahead of defending champion Crest (7-1, 14-8). Northeast (7-1, 17-5), which lost out on the championship because the TRL uses tie-breakers, was voted seventh with 52 points. Each one received a top-three vote.

Pleasanton (1-6, 5-16) was voted eighth with 35 points. Marmaton Valley (2-6, 4-18) was picked ninth with 33 points. Chetopa, unable to field a team last season due to lack of numbers, was picked 10th with 26 points. And Altoona-Midway (0-8, 0-19), which enters the season on a 71-game losing streak -- and hasn't won a league game since 2009 -- received 11 points.

Uniontown head coach Jeremy Neville already had an idea of who would be out for the team as he held a 6 a.m. practice Monday morning.

"I think it's going to be a tight race," Neville said to the media. "We have six seniors who will give us a lot of leadership."

Jayhawk-Linn's head coach was not present. St. Paul's coach, Keith Wiatrak, returns to the position after a year off. However, he did coach his players over each of the two previous summers as he did not make the decision to step down as coach until later in the year last school year.

"We have everyone back," Wiatrak said. There were no seniors last season but there will be three this year. There also three transfers that he expects will be able to contribute.

Yates Center's Tanner Davis has six returning players who have started a game at some point and 10 returnees overall. Last year, he had just two seniors and one of them didn't play due to an injury. Oswego's Jeff Schreppel has eight returning players and points out that each of his four league losses last season came after his team held leads during the fourth quarter.

The margin between first and second was much wider in the girls' poll. St. Paul (9-0, 23-1), the defending champion and also the third-place finisher in Class 1A-Division I last season, received all 10 possible top-three votes and eight of the 11 first-place votes, scoring 98 points. Northeast (8-1, 15-6), last year's runner-up, received two first-place votes, eight top-three votes and 83 points. Uniontown (6-3, 15-8), which tied for third with Oswego last season, got the last first-place vote, eight top-threes and 80 points.

Oswego (6-3, 12-10) was voted fourth with 70 points and four top-three votes. Pleasanton (5-4, 13-10) was fifth with 59 points and a top-three vote. Chetopa (2-7, 6-15) and Jayhawk-Linn (4-5, 7-14) tied for sixth in the voting with 51 points and a top-three vote each.

The remaining four teams did not receive any top-three votes. Marmaton Valley (4-5, 7-14) was picked eighth with 45 points. Yates Center (2-19), which moves back to the TRL after about a decade in the Tri-Valley League, was ninth with 31 points. Crest (1-8, 2-20) was picked 10th with 27 points. And Altoona-Midway (0-9, 0-21), which has lost its last 45 league games and its last 99 regular-season games -- but won 5 of its last 10 in post-season play, was picked last with the minimum of 10 points.

Uniontown head coach Dustin Miller was unable to attend the media conference, one of six girls' head coaches who could not make it (six boys' coaches also failed to attend). St. Paul head coach Doug Tuck graduated four seniors who made it to State all four seasons. Northeast head coach Scott Post held his first practice Monday morning at midnight with four returning seniors and four starters back from last season. The Vikings have lost three league games in the past three seasons -- all of them to St. Paul.

Oswego head coach Neal Cruse says the 19 girls who attended a pre-season meeting last week "might be the most I've ever had." He has three seniors and five players who have been starters at one point or another. Jaunc Bradshaw of Chetopa has 11 girls out. He says his team will lack height but be much quicker than last year. And new Altoona-Midway head coach Lauren Lewallen is in her first year as both a teacher and a coach with 10 girls out for the league's smallest school, enrollment 51.

Uniontown's season begins December 2 with a non-league home doubleheader versus Marmaton Valley.