Pittsburg wins SEK all-sports award

Pittsburg High School is the winner of the Southeast Kansas League's Martin Rohde All-Sports Award for the second consecutive year, while Fort Scott High School finished fourth in points tabulation.

Pittsburg, which won league championships in five sports, scored 91.5 points, the most scored by a Rohde winner since Fort Scott scored 100.5 points in winning the 2005 award. Independence, champion of four sports, was second with 86 points while Chanute, winner of three sports, was third with 82. Those point totals were the best that have ever been recorded by the second- and third-place teams.

Fort Scott, which won league titles in girls' basketball and softball and shared the boys' basketball title with Labette County and Pittsburg, finished fourth with 69 points. Iola finished in fifth place while Coffeyville was sixth, Labette County seventh, Parsons eighth and Columbus ninth.

Independence's finish was its highest since winning the award in 2001.

This is Pittsburg's seventh Rohde title, going with ones won from 1981-84, 1990, and last year. Pittsburg is now tied with Independence for the second-most Rohde wins. Fort Scott has won nine Rohde titles. Columbus and Iola are the only schools which have not won the award since its inception for the 1976-77 school year.

Pittsburg was league champion in girls' cross-country, volleyball, football and boys' tennis in addition to its share of the boys' basketball crown. Indy won girls' tennis, soccer, boys' tennis and baseball. Chanute won wrestling, boys' golf and girls' track.

Iola was league champ in boys' cross-country. Coffeyville, Columbus and Parsons did not win any sports this season.

The Martin Rohde Award is named for a former Pittsburg High School educator and coach. A nine-point system is used to determine placing for the award in each sport where every school fields a team, with nine points going to the league champion on down to one point for ninth place. The scale adjusts for those sports in which some league schools do not have a team, such as soccer, in which Chanute, Iola, Parsons and Labette County do not participate.