Buffs’ swimmers qualify more for state; bowling, wrestling, girls basketball all in weekend action

BUFFS ROUNDUP: Monday, February 3, 2020

BOYS SWIMMING

For the previous two weeks, the Garden City Buffaloes’ boys swimming team had to overcome limited access to the Garden City YMCA pool for practices due to a broken heater.

Thus, practices were limited in duration to just a few minutes at a time in that stretch, due to guidelines about swimming when the water temperature drops to a certain level.

Still, when the Buffs headed to Wichita on Saturday for the Wichita Invitational, and with just a six-man team participating, the Buffs swam some outstanding times to earn state qualifying and/or state consideration times for the upcoming Class 6A state meet.

Two of the state times were automatic qualifiers, that coming from Connor Cupp in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:05.14 while the 200-yard freestyle relay team of Jeremiah Bunce, Cupp, Joel Contrarez and Devin Chappel clocked a 1:36.39 to make the state meet automatically.

The Buffs, despite missing some regular swimmers due to illness and schedule conflicts, still managed a seventh-place team finish with 86 points. Wichita East won the meet over The Independent School, 219-217. The Buffs were the lone Western Athletic Conference team to compete.

Freshman Kobe Otero had a 58.28 mark in the 100-yard backstroke for a fifth-place standing and Cupp had a sixth-place finish in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 55.43 seconds. Esai Morales had a 23.72 second time in the 50-yard freestyle to place seventh. Another sixth-place finish was taken by the 200-yard medley relay team of Otero, Bunce, Cupp and Morales with a time of 1:46.24.

Chappel was seventh in the 200-yard freestyle with a clocking of 1:57.11. Otero placed eighth in the 200-yard individual with a time of 2:11.31.

“We’ve now qualified in seven of the 11 events to swim at state,” said head coach Brian Watkins. “The other four events we are missing have some really promising prospects.

The Buffs, who were originally scheduled to host a meet on Thursday, will now next swim on Saturday at the Manhattan Invitational. The final regular season meet will be the WAC Championship on Feb. 13.

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Wichita Invitational

Team Scores: 1. Wichita East, 219; 2. The Independent School, 217; 3. Olathe Northwest, 205; 4. Wichita-Kapaun Mt. Carmel, 172; 5. Andover Central, 159; 6. Andover High, 120; 7. Garden City, 86; 8. Wichita Collegiate, 50; 9. Topeka-Washburn Rural, 41; 10. Wichita Classical School, 26; 11. Wichita Trinity Academy, 4; 12. Blue Aces, 1.

Garden City Individuals: 200y medley relay-6. (Otero, Bunce, Cupp, Morales), 1:46.24; 200y freestyle-7. Chappel, 1:57.11; 200y individual medley-8. Otero, 2:11.31; 50y freestyle-7. Morales, 23.72; 100y butterfly-6. Cupp, 55.43; 500y freestyle-9. Chappel, 5:27.13; 200y freestyle relay-6. (Bunce, Cupp, Contrarez, Chappel), 1:36.39; 100y backstroke-5. Otero, 58.28; 100y breaststroke-6. Cupp, 1:05.14.

BOWLING

For most of the 2020 bowling season, the Garden City Buffaloes have known that the Campus teams will be among their chief competitors when it comes to regional and state tournament time at the end of February into the first week of March.

That assessment by coach Kip Nichols was never more apparent than it was Saturday when the host Colts captured both the boys and girls divisions of their own Campus Invitational, held at Seneca Bowl in Wichita.

Campus’ boys totaled 2,776 pins over the 12-game Baker Format to edge past Goddard-Eisenhower’s 2,722 total. The Buffs, averaging just at 200 for each of the 12 games, managed to win just 4 of 12 games against Derby, Mulvane twice, Eisenhower and the Campus varsity and junior varsity squads.

The Lady Buffs, meanwhile, were a solid second to the Lady Colts, finishing with 2,432 pins (186 average) to Campus’ 2,547 total (195 average). The Lady Buffs won 10 of 12 games, losing only to the Campus varsity by scores of 177-201 and 160-175.

They swept the 2-game sets against Derby (211-189/183-161), Eisenhower (175-153/203-175), Wichita South (214-123/186-103) and Mulvane (204-145/177-152). Following the round-robin against the five opponents, Campus and Garden were ranked 1 and 2, and had an additional two game set, where the Lady Buffs prevailed 180-168 and 162-138.

The boys, meanwhile, split with Derby (219-213/217-229), Mulvane (173-179/235-224) and Eisenhower (212-156/157-201) before dropping both games to Mulvane (207-219/176-184) and Campus (233-278/181-205). They finished off the day with a split with Campus’ JV (161-181/233-182).

Next action for the Buffs’ teams will be Thursday when they travel to Liberal for a Western Athletic Conference dual match. Varsity action begins at 3 p.m. with junior varsity set to roll at 1 o’clock.

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Campus Invitational

Girls

Team Scores: 1. Campus, 2,547; 2. Garden City, 2,432; 3. Goddard-Eisenhower, 1,971; 4. Mulvane, 1,831; 5. Derby, 1,618; 6. Wichita South, 1,483.

Boys

Team Scores: 1. Campus, 2,776; 2. Goddard-Eisenhower, 2,722; 3. Derby, 2,698; 4. Mulvane, 2,579; 5. Garden City, 2,484; 6. Campus JV, 2,308; 7. Derby JV, 1,930; 8. Wichita South, 1,736.

WRESTLING

For one of the few times in recent memory, the Garden City Buffaloes boys wrestling team had a rough performance at the Rocky Welton Invitational on Friday-Saturday, Jan. 31-Feb. 1 at The Garden.

The Buffs, whose roster has been depleted by injuries, finished in 18^th place in the 40-team field with 79.5 points and didn’t have any wrestler advance to the finals. Only junior Josh Janas reached the semifinals at 152 pounds before placing fourth, the highest of any Buff grappler.

Silas Pineda took sixth at 120 pounds in a weight division loaded with outstanding wrestlers. When the six competitors took to the mat for the medal-placing matches (1^st-2^nd, 3^rd-4^th, 5^th-6^th), there were five state champions battling for the six medals. It was that tough.

Goddard won the team competition for the third straight year as the Lions rolled up four individual titles and 219.5 points to outdistance runner-up Pueblo East, Colo., 181.5.

Steven Sellers garnered a fifth-place at 132 pounds for the GC White squad and Erick Dominguez was sixth at 138 pounds. Alex Rodriguez placed seventh at 182 pounds.

The Buffs will host Hays on Thursday, Feb. 6, in a Western Athletic Conference dual match with JV starting at 6 p.m. in The Garden. Varsity will immediately follow.

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62^nd Rocky Welton Invitational

Team Scores: 1. Goddard, 219.5; 2. Pueblo East, 181.5; 3. Windsor, CO, 179.0; 4. Blue Valley-Southwest, 176.5; 5. Kearney, NE, 168.5. 18. Garden City-Brown, 79.5; 32. Garden City-White, 16.

Individual Placings

120-6. Silas Pineda; 126-9. Ryan Heiman; 132-5. Steven Sellers (White team); 15. Sebastian Rodriguez; 138-6. Erick Dominguez; 152-4. Josh Janas; 160-11. Jared Arellano; 182-7. Alex Rodriguez.

GIRLS BASKETBALL

Garden City’s Lady Buffaloes basketball team went 1-2 in the Newton Invitational over a three-day period, capturing a Friday night Pool Play contest by a 49-44 overtime count against Wichita-Kapaun Mt. Carmel before dropping a heartbreaking 46-43 decision on Saturday to Wichita-Bishop Carroll in the third place game.

The Lady Buffs had dropped their Pool Play opening game on Thursday to eventual champion Andover Central.

In the Thursday thriller over Kapaun Mt. Carmel, the Lady Buffs stormed out to a 13-1 lead after one quarter, only to be outscored 15-8 in the second by the Lady Crusaders to take a 21-16 halftime advantage. KMC had an 18-8 third-quarter advantage to go up by five, 34-29, heading to the final eight minutes. The Buffs then outscored KMC 15-10 to tie the game at 44 and then had a 5-0 scoring edge in the three-minute overtime period to come away with the victory.

Amaya Gallegos was the lone double-figure scorer with 17 points for the Buffs.

The 1-1 Pool Play mark put them into Saturday’s third-place game against Wichita-Bishop Carroll and it was closely-contested game throughout.

Leading 13-6 after one quarter, the Buffs saw that advantage disappear in the second, trailing the Golden Eagles 28-24 at the break. The teams battled to a 7-7 standoff in the third, making it a 35-31 score going to the final stanza, and the Buffs could only manage a 1-point edge, 12-11, to close the final score to three points.

Gallegos scored 16 points to pace the Buffs, with Aileen Becerril and Keyhana Turner adding 10 points each, respectively.

The three-day effort left the Lady Buffs with an 8-5 season record. They are scheduled to travel to Dodge City Tuesday to face the Lady Red Demons, 11-4, at 6 p.m. in a Western Athletic Conference battle. They will return home Friday to take on Guymon, Okla., for Homecoming.

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Kapaun Mt. Carmel  1  15  18  10  0  — 44

Garden City  13  8  8  15  5  —  49

Garden City (8-4) – Beasley 1, Calzonetti  9, Becerril 8, Franco 3, Gallegos 17, Meng 2, Turner 9.

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Bishop Carroll  6  22  7  11  — 46

Garden City  13  11  7  12  — 43

Garden City (8-5) – Beasley 1, Becerril 10, Gallegos 16, Turner 10, Rodriguez 6.