By William / www.mcpherson-county-ks.com

MCPHERSON – The Wheat State League have named their all-league boys and girls basketball teams and they were dominated by McPherson area schools as 16 area players were mentioned, including a clean sweep of the first-team girls team and both coach-of-the-year honors.

For the All-Wheat State League girls team, it was all McPherson County area school girls on the first team with Little River’s Lily Boughfman, Aubrey Olander, and Alaina Eck being joined by Elyria Christian’s Ryland Hawkinson and Kylee Penner.

In addition to sweeping the first team girls honors, the girls coach of the year went to Brent Clark of Little River as well.

The Lady Redskins, who finished the 2021-22 season with a 22-2 mark after a heartbreaking loss to Burlingame in the first round of the state tournament, also had Ashley Stephenson named to the second team. With only Boughfman being a senior and Olander, Eck, and Stephenson all being just sophomores, the Lady Redskin basketball program appears to be built for more successes in the future.

Besides Hawkinson and Penner, Elyria Christian had three other Lady Eagles earning honors with Alexus Swenson making the second team while both Allie Stone and KiLynn Starburg were named honorable mention.

The Lady Eagles closed out their season with a record of 14-8 and will return Hawkinson, Swenson and Stone to build a solid foundation of future success.

For the All-Wheat State League boys team, three of the five named first-team were from McPherson County area schools as juniors Braxton Lafferty and Dalton Mantz of Little River, and Tyson Struber, a senior for Canton/Galva earned honors along with Caiden Duerksen of Goessel and Makean Hastings of Solomon.

Little River concluded a sweep of coach-of-the-year honors with the Redskins Erik Base earning the honors for the boys team.

Little River also had senior Allan Burrola named to the second team and after finishing the season with a record of 16-7.

Joining Struber from Canton/Galva in earning all-league honors was senior Christian Darrah who was named second team.

Elyria Christian finished their season at 14-7 and had two players gain all-league honors with freshman Ty Romero landing on the second team while senior Keyan Wiggers made honorable mention.

(William is a free-lance writer covering McPherson County Activities – he can be reached at crossdovewriter@gmail.com)