By Anvil Welch
awelch@joplinglobe.com
Darian Kelly helped the Girard High School boys basketball team amass 81 wins in four seasons.
Plus, the Trojans, 81-19 overall, finished second in the Kansas Class 4A Tournament the last two seasons. They were third in 2006-07. They piled up a 31-1 record in the CNC League with the last three teams 8-0.
The fact that Girard didn’t return from Salina with a championship in any of those years is the rub, of course.
That still gnaws at the 6-foot-2 Kelly. But The Globe’s Player of the Year for 2008-09 doesn’t have much time to replay another runner-up finish.
Kelly is a football player, he said. He arrived in Lawrence last week to start preparing for his freshman season at the University of Kansas.
“We’re running and lifting,” Kelly said. “But I can’t lift because I’m coming off shoulder surgery. All I’ve been doing basically is running ... and lots of it. I’ve lost 5-7 pounds.”
Kelly, who said his weight in basketball was about 190, said he’s rooming with freshman offensive lineman Riley Spencer of Hesston.
“We ran out of time,” Kelly said of the Trojans’ 53-48 loss to Basehor-Linwood for supremacy this season at Salina.
“I thought from Day 1 we had what it took to win a state title,” Kelly said. “It was a matter of doing it. But I didn’t believe we had enough hustle until we had a sense of urgency.
“We picked the wrong time to not come out ready to play,” Kelly said.
Kelly wasn’t selling Basehor-Linwood short, either.
“They were very balanced,” he said of the Bobcats. “We couldn’t concentrate on one or two players. They were disciplined and did a good job of running their offense.”
Kelly, a running back-free safety for the Trojans, agreed that basketball could be a remnant of the past.
“It’s finished,” he said. “I’m a safety in football, right now. Basketball will be something I miss.”
Kelly, although he missed several games in basketball as a junior, finished with 1,241 career points. He was a four-year stalwart for Zach Martin and Rod Wescott (the final campaign).
Kelly’s parents, in a sense, have shown him the way.
Dad Anthony played basketball at Fort Scott Community College and Pittsburg State. Mom — the former Jennifer Miller of Uniontown — played basketball, softball and volleyball at Fort Scott.
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