HAYS, Kan. – The Hays Eagles Senior American Legion baesball team continues to win close games. Thursday they pushed their winning streak to five with a pair of victories over Beloit at the Hays High Field.

The Eagles scored two in the first then held on for a 3-2 win in the opener, their fourth straight one-run victory. They then scored a run in the second to take the lead for good then added four in the third and five in the fourth for a 13-3, four inning-run rule victory in the second contest.

Willie Sennett earned the win in the opener, giving up two runs on one hit with five strikeouts over six innings. Trey Riggs and Palmer Hutchison both drove in a run. Riggs had two hits while Dawson Harman, Grant Coffman and Cole Murphy all drove in two runs.

Nick Fisher allowed three runs on three hits with one strikeout and four walks over 3 1/3 innings for the win in the second game.

The Eagles improve to 7-2. They are back in action Thursday night with 6 pm doubleheader against Russell at Larks Park.

DODGE CITY, Kan. – The Hays Eagles Senior American Legion baseball team is on a three-game win streak and all three wins have been by one run. Tuesday the Eagles beat Dodge City 3-2 and 1-0 to move to 5-2 on the season.

Palmer Hutchison drove in the go-ahead and winning run in the first game with a single to left in the seventh inning which drove home Brady Kreutzer who reached on an error to open the inning. Grant Coffman and Hutchison combined to throw a three hitter. Coffman allowed all three hits with three strikeouts and three walks before Hutchison worked a perfect seventh for the save.

Trey Riggs pitched a complete game shutout in the second game which was called after four innings due to rain. Riggs struck out five and walked one and gave up five hits. The Eagles lone run came in the fourth.

Hays is back at home Wednesday with a four o’clock doubleheader against Beloit at the Hays High Field.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Chiefs coach Andy Reid says the move to cut wide receiver Jeremy Maclin had been under consideration for a while, but Reid refused to discuss the reasons behind last week’s stunning decision.

Reid spoke Tuesday for the first time since Maclin was released.

The Chiefs had been bumping up against the salary cap before the move Friday, and would have had trouble signing their three remaining draft picks. But by releasing Maclin after June 1, they saved about $10 million that they can add to the roughly $3.5 million they had available.

Besides the financial aspect, Maclin dealt with injuries much of last season, and his production declined sharply from his first year in Kansas City. He had 44 catches for 536 yards and two touchdowns in 2016.

LARNED, Kan. – The Hays Monarchs American Legion baseball team split with Larned Monday night. After being held to four hits and committing five errors in a 5-1 loss in game one, they bounced back scoring 23 runs on eight hits in a 23-4 rout in the second game.

The Monarchs (2-2) took advantage of 13 walks and only had one extra base hit in the second contest. Chase Werth went 0-for-3 but drove in five runs. Gavin Schumacher, Luke Ruder and Cole Zimmerman all drove in three. Carlos Schwindt allowed four hits while walking five and striking out two in the complete game four inning run-rule win.

Chase Werth allowed five unearned runs on five hits with five strikeouts and five walks and suffered the loss in the first game. The Monarchs led 1-0 until the fourth when Larned scored twice on a single and error. They added three more in the fifth.

The Monarchs host Dodge City Thursday at 6pm at the TMP Sports Complex.

By DIANE GASPER-O’BRIEN
FHSU University Relations and Marketing

HAYS, Kan. –There is a fine line between not even making the finals of the 800-meter run at nationals and winning the national championship.

Two Fort Hays State University athletes both qualified for the 800 finals at the NCAA Division II National Championships in Bradenton, Fla., on May 26.

The next day, teammates Dean Cronin and Brett Meyer made the most of their opportunity.

Cronin, a junior from Cork, Ireland, used his signature kick down the stretch and won the national title with a sub 2-minute time of 1:49.75. Only 1.21 seconds separated the winner and Meyer, a sophomore from Scott City, who finished in seventh place.

The top eight finishers at nationals earn first-team All-America honors, and Fort Hays State had two runners raising their trophies at the same time on the winners’ stand. For a complete list of FHSU athletes who received All-America honors in 2016-17, visit the athletics website at fhsuathletics.com.

To show just how tough the competition was in the 800, the defending national champion, Shaquille Dill from St. Augustine’s (N.C.) University, finished fifth in 1:50.86.

“In that race, everything has to go just right,” said Dennis Weber, FHSU’s head track and field coach. “One little mistake, and it can make a huge difference.”

The FHSU duo hugged at the completion of the race, thankful for each other and each crediting their teammate for their success.

“We are kind of the dynamic duo,” the soft-spoken Cronin said with a smile. “I would not have done as well this year without Brett. He helps me with mileage, and I help him with speed.”

“It is such a competitive environment here,” he added in reference to American competition.

The feeling is mutual for Meyer.

“We definitely help each other; we push each other really hard,” he said. “I don’t know if I would have made it to nationals if he hadn’t come to school here.”

Cronin said it was a “blessing” to get recruited by Fort Hays State after suffering through an injury-plagued sophomore season at Iowa Central Community College in 2014-15.

Cronin had won the 800 meters and was part of the national championship 3,200-meter relay as a freshman at Iowa Central in 2014, setting school records in both. But after battling back problems as a sophomore, he returned home to Ireland, uncertain of his future in running.

Then came an email from Jason McCullough in Hays, Kansas. FHSU coaches were familiar with athletes from Iowa Central because several already were a part of the FHSU team.

“It was good timing for us,” said McCullough, in charge of the middle distance and distance runners at Fort Hays State. “We still had a scholarship available, and we had a connection with his friends from Iowa Central.”

Cronin thought it was a good fit for him from the start, and nothing has changed his mind.

“I could have gone to a bigger university, and it wouldn’t have been nearly as good as here,” Cronin said. “The facilities, the coaching, are fantastic.”

So much so that Cronin hopes to qualify for the World University Games in August in Iowa.
Rather than going home to Ireland for the summer, Cronin is staying in Hays to train with his coach, a former All-America runner at FHSU who still runs 70 to 100 miles a week.

Now healthy, Cronin — the No. 2-ranked 800 runner in Ireland — has his sights set on competing for his native country in the 2020 Olympics.

“If Coach McCullough trains me up, I think I can do well at the World Games,” Cronin said. “With the mileage and training this summer, I hope to continue to improve.”

For Meyer, it was the second All-America performance in just three months; he placed fifth at the national indoor meet in Birmingham, Ala., in March.

Although he was a three-time state champ in track his senior year in high school in 2015, Meyer will be the first to admit he did not see this coming.

A multi-sport athlete at Scott Community High School, Meyer didn’t start running track until his sophomore year of high school. But it was obvious early on he was a natural for his sport.

In his first year of running competitively, Meyer finished fifth at state in the 800. He followed up his fourth-place finish as a junior with three golds his senior year.

Even then, Meyer was flying — or running, if you will — under the radar.

But FHSU, a Division II school with a tradition-rich track and field program just a couple of hours from Scott City, was keeping an eye on Meyer.

“I didn’t have many offers in high school, and Fort Hays State offered me a nice scholarship,” Meyer said. “I have people asking me now, ‘Don’t you wish you would have gone D-I?’ I tell them, ‘No, D-II is very good, too.’ And it’s kind of fun being one of the top athletes at your school rather than just in the middle of the pack.”

“And,” he added, “look at our facilities.”

Meyer was referring to the 4-year-old Schmidt-Bickle Training Facility and a new track and field complex with an Olympic-style track, completed just this spring. The track features 85-meter straightaways and 115-meter curves rather than the typical 100 meters for both straightaways and curves. Those dimensions, which makes the track more of a circle than the traditional oval shape, is the standard used for international competitions, including the Olympics.

“The gradual curves are supposed to make for a little faster times,” said McCullough, who admits he is looking forward to this summer — and beyond.

Cronin, who already owns the indoor 800 school record of 1:50.27, is chasing the outdoor mark of 1:49.04 set more than 40 years ago by Jon Nelson in 1973.

Cronin’s fastest outdoor time to date was 1:49.74 at a last-chance meet in early May in Colorado Springs, Colo. For the purpose of NCAA rankings, that time was converted to 1:48.94 because of altitude. But only scratch times, and not converted times, are eligible for school records at FHSU.

However, Cronin is confident that having McCullough as his coach and Meyer as his training partner that he will be able to erase the outdoor record, too.

Meyer, too, has lofty goals.

“Coming here, I didn’t think about even making it to nationals,” Meyer said. “Now, I hope it’s an every-year thing.”

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) – The family of a former Pittsburg State college football player who killed himself in 2014 is suing the NCAA, questioning the governing body’s handling of concussions including more than 100 they say factored into Zack Langston’s death.

The federal lawsuit filed Friday in Kansas City, Kansas, also accuses the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association of negligence. It seeks unspecified damages

The lawsuit alleges Langston was concussion-prone while playing at the Division II school. Langston later endured behavior and mood swings after his football career ended, and at 26 he fatally shot himself.

A private, post-mortem examination of Langston’s brain showed chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a type of brain damage.

A message left Monday with an NCAA spokeswoman was not immediately returned.