Sports

Darby Smith scored a game-high 25 points to power 1A No. 3-ranked St.

Chris Sanders finds himself in an unfamiliar yet comfortable spot as the first-year head coach of the storied Skyline high school girls basketball program this season. The T-Birds are rebuilding with a young, talented and hard-working group, which features no seniors on a 19- player varsity-junior varsity roster.

Howie Hansen Coach Tate Thompson has been impressed by the tenacious work ethic of his Greenbacks boy’s and girl’s wrestling student-athletes in preseason practices, leading up to Thursday’s season-opening dual meet at Dodge City and a multi-team home event Saturday. The stated goals for the Pratt High wrestling program: be consistently ranked in the top-10 for the boys in 4A -- a hard task -- and for the girls to stay in the top-5 in Division 2, Thompson said Monday in an interview with the Pratt Tribune.

PRATT HIGH SCHOOL VARSITY WRESLING SCHEDULE Thursday Girls Wrestling – at Dodge City, 6 p.m. Boys Wrestling – at Dodge City, 7 p.m.

MULVANE, Kan. – Cole Patterson left no doubt who the best steer roper is in the PRCA in 2021. The Pratt Community College alum and Pratt native now stands atop of the world rankings in roping title and earnings.

Sometimes as I conjure up Google or check Fox News or the 7-day weather forecast on my smart phone, all while sitting in the Walmart parking lot, I wonder how we ever survived with phones that were only made to talk on. Then it hits me; we survived quite well, thank you very much.

Four-time defending Heart of the Plains high school boy's basketball champion Skyline held its first practice at 5:30 a.m. last Monday.

Despite returning four starters, Pratt boy’s basketball coach Chris Battin knows as well as anyone how competitive the Central Kansas League is every season. “If you don’t show up ready to play, you get run out of the gym,” the Greenbacks' sixth-year coach said of the 10- team conference, one of Kansas’ fi�nest, in a preseason interview with the Pratt Tribune minutes before the team’s fi�rst offi�cial preseason workout Monday afternoon.

The Kansas State Wildcats, coming off a 20-10 loss to the 9th ranked Baylor Bears, will go to south Texas this Friday to play its final Conference game of the year. The Wildcats will take on the Texas Longhorns in Austin at Texas Memorial Stadium. The game is scheduled to start at 11:00 am and be televised by Fox.

Pratt’s High School girl’s basketball team will improve steadily during the 2021-22 season, head coach Dustin Hildebrand predicted during a preseason interview after school Friday. “We should really improve when our junior post player Marleigh Bates returns from foot surgery, but likely not until January,” the fifth-year coach said.