Okay, we survived the quick blast of winter thrust upon in mid-October.

For that, there is a reward.

The rest of the month is going to be as fall as fall gets. Temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s and even into the 70’s this Friday. Lows are going to hang out in the 40s.

I have it on good authority this will happen – right up until about Halloween itself. I am not going to make any promises for that night.

But seriously, snow in mid-October. That is something you don’t see every year. Snow in October is not unheard of in these parts by any means, but that is about as early as I recall.

Now on to some more traditional October weather. It usually is one of the best weather months of the year in Kansas. Let’s hope the last two weeks are just that.

Prep Thoughts

There is just one week left in the regular season, so the playoff picture is coming into pretty good focus at this point for prep football teams in the state.

After the dust of last week cleared, the Great Bend Panthers almost control their own destiny for that third seed in the West half of 5A. It pretty much this simple – win by 11 points or more and hope either or both Salina Central (v Hays) and Kapaun (v Heights) win as well. Great Bend has the best point total among the four teams at 5-2 tied for third. But the Panthers have a loss to Carroll – the fourth team at 5-2.

As long as one other team is tied with GB and Carroll, it will go to the points for the tie-breaker. Even if its only Kapaun, which Carroll also beat. But all the tied teams must have played each other for that tiebreaker to be used. If the Panthers are the 3 seed, there are a number of possible opponents but look for it to be either Valley Center or Goddard Eisenhower. Simple, huh? But first things first, Great Bend has only beaten Garden City once since 2014 – and that was just last year.

Hoisington will need to shake off the body blow Phillipsburg dealt it last week and finish up with a win over Norton to host in week nine to open the bracket. The winner of Norton and Hoisington will be the second seed and host probably Sterling in week nine while the loser will head to Lakin.

Central Plains has one more victim on the regular season schedule in Macksville and is most likely looking at South Gray as a first round victim in the post-season.

Ellinwood has been eliminated from bracket play at this point. The Eagles get the task of hosting 2A 7 district champion Cimarron Friday then traveling to either TMP, Minneapolis or Ellsworth to finish out the season in week nine.

Larned is out of playoff contention as well but has two more shots at a win. Kingman is in town this week then a trip to either Goodland or more likely Russell in week nine.

Former Barton Athlete/Coach update

Congratulations to current Barton AD and former player Trevor Rolfs for his induction into the Bethany College Athletic Hall of Fame. Trevor was inducted this past weekend.

He played basketball and football for Bethany in the ‘90’s. Trevor was twice an All-KCAC basketball pick and was also selected all conference as a receiver in football.

Referee House

It is the season of pink. You see it more and more during October as high schools take in part in Breast Cancer Awareness Month. At football games, you mostly see it with fans, pep clubs, and cheerleaders. You see it on the field to an extent, usually with pink socks or wrist bands.

We try to do our part as well as officials. For several years we have had a pink whistle we blow. Even pink bean bags and wrist bands. This year we went one step farther. Our crew chief Jon Shaver got us all pink flags. We threw them two weeks ago and will do so again this week.

We are all for healthy breasts.

And Finally

Can you get a cramp in your knee?

I’m pretty sure I had one this past week. I stood up, took two steps and dropped to the floor. It was that cramp pain you get in your calf of foot usually. You know the one, where you make the noise of about three-quarters pain and one-quarter laughter.

After an acceptable amount of time of whining and rubbing my knee, I stood up and had a limp for a bit but then it went away. Just like a cramp, but I’ve never had a cramp in my knee. Is that a thing?

It wasn’t as bad as ones I get in my calf or foot, which also usually occur during football season. I hate them. But what can you do about them – other than eat healthier, drink more water and just be in all around better shape. Who wants to do those things?

I am trying to drink more water, though. I even have an app on my phone to keep track of it. It is a feature on the Samsung Health app. The only problem is I have to enter it in manually.

That means it is also a memory app because I usually have to remember like five days back to enter in my water consumption.

The neatest part of the app is the step counting feature. I try to never leave my phone setting around when I’m walking. That would be missing steps. I need 6000 a day for it congratulate me. Everyone likes to be congratulated.

Why just the other night I got up and started walking around the house randomly. Crystal asked what I was doing. I still needed like 400 steps to hit 6000.

The dogs followed me for a while then I think they decided there must be something wrong with me and went and laid back down. Like they get in 6000 steps a day.

I will admit I only walked during the commercials. After all, that Halloween Wars show was on the Food Network.

Mike Marzolf is a guest columnist for the Great Bend Tribune and his views don’t necessarily reflect those of the paper. He can be reached at MarzolfM@bartonccc.edu.