Besides coming up shy of advancing to the Class 5A state baseball tournament, the Great Bend High School Panthers met nearly all of their goals during the 2013 season.
Great Bend, which tied Hays for the Western Athletic Conference championship as both teams finished with 6-2 records, had four all-conference selections in outfielder Chad Touslee, pitcher/shortstop Bryce Beck, pitcher Tristan Hall and first baseman Dakota Conaway.
Panthers head coach Randy Beck was named for the coach-of-the-year award, and Hays slugger Hayden Hutchison was chosen as the WAC player of the year. Selections were made by league coaches.
“We’re pleased to have four all-conference players,” Randy Beck said. “Two seniors and two juniors, that were named first-team All-WAC. I’m really proud of those guys. We think that’s a big accomplishment for us as a team.”
• Touslee, a senior, led the Panthers in batting average for the season (.426) and runs batted in (20). He also hit their only homer of the season.
• Beck, a junior, led the team in hits (27) and stolen bases (11), while ranking No. 2 in batting average (.415). The right-handed pitcher also posted a 5-2 record with a 4.17 earned run average in 40 innings with 27 strikeouts.
• Hall, a junior righthander, led the Panthers with a 5-1 record, along with the top ERA (2.84), most strikeouts (40) and most innings pitched (44).

• Conaway, a senior first baseman, finished with a .386 batting average. He led the team in extra-base hits — doubles (9) and triples (3) — while driving in 14 runs.
The Panthers won 10 of their first 11 games en route to clinching a share of the title.
“Winning the WAC title is something we have strived for during the past four years,” Randy Beck said. “It’s something we haven’t reached lately and it we finally got it this year. That was also rewarding.”
Playing host as the No. 2 seed in a regional at the Great Bend Sports Complex, the Panthers lost to Newton in a semifinal to close their season with a 15-5 mark.
“We reached every goal on our list except win our regional,” Randy Beck said. “We had a 15-win season, and it comes down to single elimination in the postseason. I thought we had as good of chance as anybody of getting through our regional and it just didn’t work out that way. It was a tough feeling.”
For Beck, a former prep baseball player at Hoisington, who went on to play shortstop for Fort Hays State University in the mid-1980s, it was his first coaching honor.
“The kids make personal goals every year, and that was one of my personal goals, being named coach of the year,” he said. “It’s a good feeling in that respect.”

All-Western Athletic Conference
Baseball Selections

• First Team
Chad Touslee, Sr., Great Bend; Hayden Hutchison, Sr., Hays; Bryce Beck, Jr., Great Bend; Tristan Hall, Jr., Great Bend; Jordan Doan, Sr., Dodge City; Austin Weiser, Jr., Dodge City; Andrew Balderaz, Jr., Dodge City; Chander Rule, Sr., Hays; Lane Downing, Jr., Hays; Edgar Montoya, Sr., Garden City; Thomas Solorio, Jr., Garden City; Jared Hasik, Fr., Liberal; Dakota Conaway, Sr., Great Bend
• Honorable Mention
Gideon Wells, Fr., Dodge City; Dakota Duckett, Sr., Dodge City; Kade Parker, Jr., Hays
• Player of the Year — Hutchison, Hays
• Coach of the Year — Randy Beck, Great Bend