STAFFORD — With only seven players on its roster, Class 1A Division-II Stafford High School has the smallest boys’ basketball team in the area.
According to a survey done by Stafford last spring and again before the basketball season began, its girls team would have been even smaller.
The Trojans only had four girls indicate any interest in playing competitive basketball for Stafford. As it turned out, three girls from Stafford have taken the measure of traveling to 4A Pratt to join the Lady Greenbacks’ program, practice daily and play in games for Pratt in a cooperative agreement.
“Last spring and again before the season began this fall, we surveyed our girls to see how many planned to go out for basketball,” Stafford’s principal Jim Menze said in an email. “We had four girls indicate that they were planning to go out.
“We decided that we needed to find a school that would form a cooperative agreement with us to take our girls on their team so our girls would have a place to play.”
So the search began.
The trouble was, when two schools create a cooperative agreement, the school getting the few extra players has to include the total enrollment for 10th through 12th grades at both schools when being classified by the Kansas State High School Activities Association.
As a result, the closest area teams would each get bumped up to a higher classification. Higher classes means greater competition against schools with larger wells from which to draw student-athlete talent.
“The smaller schools in our area would have had to play in 2A or 3A classifications and understandably, they didn’t think it would be fair to their to their students,” Menze said.
Meanwhile, 30 miles away, Pratt was looking at a problem.
The Lady Greenbacks had graduated their starting point guard from last season. The backup point guard was geared to take up the role for Pratt, but a season-ending injury before the season even began meant Pratt’s head coach Dean Rousch was looking at having to teach a new player the position.
“We lost two point guards from last season and we were going to develop one,” Rousch said. “Then, during volleyball season, my athletic director calls me and asks me if we wanted to take some players from another school.”
Stafford had three girls still interested in playing basketball: senior Cheyene Eisenhour, sophomore Samantha Sosa and freshman Riley Bower. Sosa and Bower play on the freshman and junior varsity teams, but Eisenhour just happened to fill a role that Rousch had open.
Eisenhour has been the starting point guard for the Lady Greenbacks this season. In Pratt’s final game before the break against the Nickerson Panthers, Eisenhour tied for second-leading scorer for the Lady Greenbacks with seven points in a 42-18 victory.

“I couldn’t have asked for better kids,” Rousch said. “They are all hard-working and very respectful.”
Eisenhour has made such an impression for Pratt, she was unanimously voted in as team captain.
“We were a small 4A school, so adding the girls didn’t bump us up,” Rousch said. “I think it worked out for everyone. We wanted to fill three teams and I don’t know if we would have been able to do that without them.
“We’ve lost four girls to injury this year. Having them on our team has been a blessing.”