Little Washington

This post comes to you from a picnic bench in the northwest corner of Washington County High School's football stadium. I am not in Washington State, Washington DC or even Washington Parish, Louisiana, where I covered Franklinton against Parkview Baptist in a 2002 playoff game.

This Washington is a small hamlet on US 36. Population is somewhere around 1,400, and the school has 134 students, which is 103 fewer than Russell, and way, way, way fewer than the 2,336 at Wichita East, the state's largest high school. If you're making the drive to or from St. Joseph, you'll miss the town if you blink. No stoplights, only a Casey's General Store and Phillips 66 station on the westbound side of the highway. It's 90 miles from Smith Center, 80 miles from Hiawatha and 120 from St. Joseph. It took a lot quicker to get here than I thought, and I turned into the school a minute or two after 4 p.m.

I was last here for a regional track meet on May 22, 2009. As I recall, Smith Center's Torie Fuller stumbled on the backstretch in the 300-meter hurdles.

When I arrived, the sun was bright, and it was pretty warm if you stood out in it.  It's now 6:20 p.m. and the sun is starting to set, and the temperature is starting to drop. It should be another beautiful night for football as the host Tigers take on Smith Center.

This is the first district game for both schools. The Kansas State High School Activities Association assigns schools to districts for football based upon classification, and the top two schools from each district advance to the state playoffs. The system isn't the best, and I'll go into its inherent flaws in a later post.

Just found out Smith Center will probably have to dispose of Hill City to get to the Class 2A state volleyball tournament. The KSHSAA posted sub-state assignments this afternoon, and sure enough, the two schools were put in the same sub-state at Oberlin. The other schools in the tournament are Ellis, Oakley, Leoti, Rock Hills (Mankato), Plainville and Oberlin, but make no mistake, it should come down to the Ringnecks and Lady Red for all the marbles. More on that later, too.

Right now, time to walk around the field and see what's going on. Be back soon.