High-scoring Trey Unrau, who broke Moundridge High School’s basketball career scoring mark of former Iowa State guard Jacy Holloway, has signed to play for Barton Community College’s men’s basketball team in 2012-13.
Unrau, who averaged 26.2 points for Moundridge this past season, finished with 2,250 points.
The 5-foot-11 guard didn’t have a storybook ending to his marvelous prep career because he blew out the anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus in his right knee in the opening round of the Class 3A state tournament against Rock Creek at the Hutchinson Sports Arena in March.
The prospect of Unrau winning a state championship for his father, Vance, Moundrige’s head coach, vanished.
But Unrau’s hopes of playing at the next level never wavered — even after he underwent surgery to repair the knee damage — and Barton head coach Craig Fletchall was more than happy to offer him a scholarship as Unrau became Barton’s first signee.
“We definitely need a perimeter shooter like him,” Fletchall said of Unrau. “He probably has six to nine months of recovery time, but we’re going to need him to get healthy fast.
“He was a great scorer in high school and scored over 2,200 points.”
Holloway, now the head high school basketball coach at Garden City, finished with 1,639 points and went on to play point for Iowa State.
Unrau isn’t the only basketball guard at Barton who will be recovering in the offseason from injury.
Al Key — who led the Cougars in scoring (18.7 points per game), assists (164) and steals (60) last season and recently was named as a third-team NJCAA Division-I All-America selection — is scheduled to have rotator cuff surgery on his shoulder in late May or early June in Atlanta, Ga. He hails from Decatur, Ga., an Atlanta suburb.
Key, a 6-3 combination guard, suffered the injury late in the season and still was able to play at a high level, establishing himself as the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference Western Division Freshman of the Year, along with being named as a first-team all-conference selection and a Region VI first-team performer.
Key’s given name is Algie, but he would prefer being called Al.
“That’s what everybody has always called me,” Key said.
Fletchall said 5-11 freshman guard Kurt Walker, a product of Hayden in Topeka, is transferring to Washburn University to play golf for the Ichabods.
“This was not totally unexpected,” Fletchall said. “When Kurt came here last spring, he really wanted to play golf and he talked about playing both here (at Barton).
“His situation is that his brother (Brian) will be a senior at Washburn and he wants to play golf with his brother. I respect his decision, and I respect what he did for us this year. I think he made our team better, yet he can turn the page on basketball now. It’s a cycle that we deal with at our level.”
Walker averaged 3.1 points, hit 17 3-pointers and shot a team-best 84.8 percent from the free-throw line (28 for 33). He converted a pair of critical foul shots to help seal the Cougars’ upset of No. 5-ranked Coffeyville during a quarterfinal game of the Region VI playoffs at Park City’s Hartman Arena in March.
This brings us to returning guard Turon Parker, a 6-1 freshman guard from Canton, Ohio, who played only six games in 2011 before going down with a knee injury. He came back strong in January and finished the Cougars’ 26-7 season with a 9.5 scoring average. He had 81 assists — third on the team —  and converted 74.1 percent of his free throws (63 for 85), tops among all returning players.
“You look at Turon, and I don’t think we really saw the full player,” Fletchall said. “He took most of the first semester off (with the injury) and he played only six games pre-conference and then got thrown in the fire.
“He’s working hard here every day, and his leadership is going to continue to grow. Inside and out, we’re going to have a pretty good combination of guards.”