The Chargers defeated the Valley Heights Mustangs Friday 56-8, securing a district championship and a top seed for the postseason.
The Chargers started off with a 26-0 lead at halftime. In th third quarter the Charger offense exploded for 30 points. Valley Heights’ only score came late in the fourth quarter.
Junior Wyatt Wurtz threw for 271 yards and two touchdowns. Wurtz also ran for another touchdown. Senior Eli Oliver had 127 receiving yards and two touchdowns. Junior Zach Frank ran for 115 yards and three touchdowns.
The Chargers will face Horton at home Friday for senior night and will start the postseason at home the following week. At 6-1, the team looks for a postseason win for a third straight year, and hopes to win multiple playoff games for the first time in school history.
Wright gets 1,000 career assists
Senior Annie Wright got 1,000 career assists at the Onaga Tournament. “It’s quite an accomplishment if you think about it. She was splitting up her assists running a 6-2 system her sophomore and junior year and she was hurt for well over half of her junior year,” coach Chris Smart said. “This year we are running a 5-1 system so she is able to get most of the assists this year but to accrue that many assists during her sophomore and junior year to have a chance to get to 1000 assists says a lot about her setting skills.”
The volleyball team played last week against Rossville, going 0-2 (17-25, 13-25 in the first match, 16-25, 10-25 in the second).
The team faced Rural Vista at home Thursday for its annual Pink Out, winning both matches 25-22, 25-18, and 25-19, 25-19.
The home match Tuesday against Riley County ended the regular season. Seniors Annie Wright, Paxton Meyer, Hadlee Diepenbrock and Lexi Barnes played for the last time at WHS. Diepenbrock said she’s definitely not ready for the season to come to an end. “I feel old. I’m honestly shocked that the season is coming to an end. It seems like we didn’t even have a freshman season. It’s gone by way too fast.”
The volleyball team will play at St.Mary’s Saturday for substate. “I think we will do alright. I don’t know how we will do since we are in a pretty hard sub-state. All we can do is just try our best,” Diepenbrock said.
Wurtz sweeps regular season as XC prepares for regionals
Sophomore Payton Wurtz picked up her second League Championship and a personal record Thursday at the Mid-East League meet at Silver Lake, winning the high school Girls 5k by more than 1 minute.
Senior Rebekah Stuhlsatz ran in her last MEL race and finished 2nd.
The girls finished third as a team, moving their season record to 27-15. The boys finished 5th.
“While we were shooting for higher team places, our girls were just 7 points off winning the meet and our boys were just 9 points off 3rd,” coach Roger Alderman said. “Despite very windy conditions, we had 11 season best times out of 13 runners and the other 2 were just within 5 seconds of their season bests. This is exactly what we were hoping for at this time of the year.”
Wurtz earned her seventh first-place finish of the season. “I’m so proud of my team this season and how far we’ve come since the first meet. It’s always scary coming off of a successful season like last year, because I set goals for myself and plan on meeting them,” Wurtz said. “Sometimes it can feel like you’re never going to meet the goals you set, but you have to push past what you think you can do. To be completely honest, I wasn’t expecting to PR this year since we weren’t running at Victoria. So Thursday was definitely a big win in more than one way.”
The Chargers host Regional Cross Country Saturday.
Coach Alderman is optimistic about the girls chances to advance. “The top 3 teams go to State and the girls are probably considered one of the top 3 in the Regional by most coaches, along with Sacred Heart and Oskaloosa. But we’ll still need to run well because there are some other teams like Bennington and Pleasant Ridge that will be ready to challenge us if we don’t run well,” Alderman said.
“The Boys will have an uphill battle to get in. But we ran really well at league and could make another big jump to get in the hunt at Regionals.I feel good about how both squads are running and we just need to keep them healthy and moving in the right direction.”
Admission is free and community members are welcome to come watch the races. The girls race is at 10 a.m. and the boys at 10:40. The top 10 individual runners will advance to state, along with the top 3 teams. State will be held at the Wamego Golf Course.
The Charger 
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