LARNED — The Larned High School football team will be adding some new kids to the mix this season.
Pawnee Heights was unable to muster enough interested players to man a football field, so kids who are interested in playing on the gridiron will be playing for the Indians this season.
“In football, we are going with Larned,” Pawnee Heights activity director Mark Pywell said. “We don’t have enough boys interested to put a team together. We tried to figure out who was interested last spring. It has been a process.”
The process led Pywell to Larned, a Class 4A football team that was the third-smallest 4A team in the state last year.
Larned head football coach Al Troyer said that five boys will be making the nearly 30-minute bus ride from Rozel to Larned for practice — seniors Chad Wallace and Raul Divilla, junior Jacob Hardiman and sophomores Jayton Salmans and Kasey Spence.
“It was finalized last April,” Troyer said. “Since then, we’ve tried to get them over here as much as possible. They’ve been working in the weight room over here, so they are pretty much acclimated to the team right now.
“A couple of them even came over here to play in some seven-on-seven football tournaments over the summer.”
The five boys will bring some senior leadership that Larned was lacking with only four seniors returning to the roster this year.
“Mainly for us, we’ve got two more seniors and a junior on the team,” Troyer said. “We are getting some more upper classmen. We only have four returning seniors on our team from Larned, so it is nice to add some senior leadership.”

•Miller decides not
to play for Barton
Brittanie Miller, a 2011 graduate of Larned High School who played softball and basketball, was one of that the players that Keith Ferguson recruited for Barton Community College’s women’s basketball team.
Miller, who had some objection to attending school so close to home, decided to play for Ferguson at Barton anyway.
Now that Ferguson has resigned and BCC is poised to hire former New Mexico State University head women’s basketball coach Darin Spence on Aug. 18, Miller has decided that Barton is not for her.
“For me, Barton was just too close to home, but I was looking forward to having Ferguson to coach me,” Miller said. “It sucks to not be able to have that anymore.
“It just didn’t feel right after I found out he wasn’t there anymore.”
Miller decided that instead of choosing Barton, she will move to Overland Park.
“I need to be happy,” Miller said. “I wanted to come out here and work for awhile.”
Miller said that she planned to attend Johnson County.
“I will take some classes, but probably not full time,” Miller said. “I’m not sure how many classes I’ll take.
“I thought about playing at Johnson County, but I decided to take a semester off. I’m taking a break, but I’ll definitely be getting back into it.”