Chris Umphres adds a touch of art to the state baseball/softball tournaments coming to the Great Bend Sports Complex.
On Tuesday afternoon Umphres, sports director at the Great Bend Recreation Commission, painted the Kansas State High School Activities Association logo on three fields, in preparation for the KSHSAA tournament going on Thursday and Friday. Sixteen baseball and softball teams from 1A and 2A schools across the state will play in the tournament.
Helped by GBRC employee Roger Ward, it took about 30 minutes for Umphres to spray paint the logo — the letters KSHSAA  in white inside a blue Kansas map, all inside a 7-foot diameter baseball outlined in red. Before that, it took a couple of hours to make the stencil on a large piece of plastic sheeting.
This is the first time for Great Bend to host the KSHSAA tournament at its new Sports Complex. It follows the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference Baseball and Softball Tournament, held here April 30 through May 3. Umphres created an even more elaborate stencil for that tournament.
While Umphres and Ward painted logos, City employee Jacob Milsap mowed the grass. Both Umphres and Milsap said they plan to touch up their work before the tournament starts.
Adding logos to the fields gives the tournament a professional look, Umphres said. “It’s fun,” he added. “It just makes the field look nicer.”
The first baseball game starts at 11 a.m. Thursday, and the first softball game starts at 5 p.m.

Best foot forward
Great Bend Community Coordinator Christina Hayes said the city received rave reviews after hosting its first KCAC tournament. “The visitors and the teams really enjoyed coming to Great Bend,” she said. “Now we’ve got one (state tournament) under our belt. We’re excited to show the rest of Kansas what we’ve got.”

Here are Thursday’s game schedules with the teams’ current rankings:
Boys — Udall High School (1) vs. Cedervale/Dexter (8) at 11 a.m.; Eskridge-Mission Valley (4) vs. Pittsburg-St. Marys Colgan  (5) at 1:30 p.m.; Troy (2) vs. Ellis (7) at 4 p.m.; and Little River (3) vs. Elkhard (6) at 6:30 p.m.
Girls — Cottonwodd Falls-Chase County (1) vs. Oswego (8) at 5 p.m.; Udall (4) vs. Yates Center (5) at 7 p.m.; Brookville-Ell Saline (2) vs. Spearville (7) at 5 p.m.; and Hillsboro (3) vs. McLouth (6) at 7 p.m.