Friday night should be a blast at Great Bend’s Memorial Stadium. Traditional 5A power house and the No. 4 ranked Bishop Carroll Golden Eagles will be flying into town.

But the battle between Great Bend and Carroll on the football field will not be the only battle taking place that night.

The Great Bend High band will be taking part in Catch It Kansas’s Battle of the Bands. Catch it Kansas will be in town Friday night to film the Pride of Central Kansas in action at halftime of the Great Bend-Carroll football game.

Then on Tuesday, the catchitkansas.com website will post the video along the video Great Bend’s head-to-head opponent for you to vote. The contest has been running since week one. Most of the bands have been in the Wichita area so far. Only Newton and Salina South have been outside the Greater Wichita Area through five weeks. I am not sure who the GB opponent in the battle will be.

So that leaves very little reason not to fill Memorial Stadium Friday night. A big-time football game between two teams whose only losses this year are to the No. 1 ranked teams in 5A and 6A then for a bonus prize, a halftime show to get a little crazy for as well.

Prep Thoughts

As mentioned above, Friday is going to be a big-time game for Great Bend. Coming off a sound win over Dodge City in which the Panthers showed they are indeed the team to beat in the WAC, GBHS can now show the state they are a true title contender.

You see, if Great Bend can beat Carroll there is little doubt the Panthers are in the conversation to be among the top teams in 5A. But even if Great Bend shows it can compete with Carroll, there is still plenty of time fix the little things and improve for week nine and beyond. This is one of those ‘gauge where you’re at’ games.

There will be no stopping the Hoisington Cardinals gridiron express as it barrels down the track to a fantastic week seven showdown with No. 1 Phillipsburg for what should be for the 2A, District 8 title. Ellsworth is a decent football team. But will be no match for Hoisington.

In 2A District 7, Lakin and Cimarron have established themselves as the teams to beat in the district. Ellinwood can still have a say in that if they Eagles can win their next three games. The combined record of those three opponents is 1-11.

The rigor goes on for the Larned Indians. This week it’s the defending state champion (and winners of state two of the past three years). The Indians will travel to Holcomb to face a Longhorn that is 1-3 on the season. But don’t be fooled too much. Holcomb’s loss to Scott City is the Beavers closest game this year and the loss to Colby is the Eagles closest game a well.

For Central Plains, well, it’s just a matter of staying focused. The Oilers probably won’t play a complete game the rest of the regular season.

Former Barton Athlete/Coach update

Omar Brown has landed a spot at William & Mary as an assistant track and field coach for the University. Brown, a graduate of Barton in 2002, had been coaching professionally for the Modern Sports Track Club the past seven years.

He has a very well-known wife, herself a former Barton star. Perhaps the brightest star ever to walk on the campus on the hill. One Veronica Campbell-Brown. All she’s done is win like eight medals at the Olympics. Several of them gold.

Good luck Omar, may it proved to be a lengthy collegiate coaching career.

And Finally

I told you a few weeks ago we added another dog to the list of animals at the Marzolf household.

I give you Bambi, a nearly 2-year Chihuahua courtesy the Golden Belt Humane Society. I also told you she was very frightened and timid when we visited her to the Humane Society. And that it would take a time to bring her out of her shell, blah, blah, blah.

I’m here to tell you she is a fantastic little actress. She was just pretending to be all timid and shy. That way someone (us) would feel sorry for her and adopt her.

Once she got to the house, she was full speed ahead – all seven pounds of her. In fact, even before we got home. A trip home from the Humane Society had to include an ice cream pup cup, right? She was all over that.

Then we got home and she saw her 30-pound big brother Waffle, she was off to the races. It was batten the couch and coffee table and they ran and chased each other with excitement. She even chased the cats, which, well, they didn’t like too much. But that is getting better as well.

I call her Smalls. That way I can say ‘You’re killing me Smalls’. Yeah, I like the Sandlot.

Anyway, she has taken to Crystal quite a bit. Sits with her every chance she gets. Sleeps with her. She did this right from the start.

Perhaps she took to my wife through some Divine intervention. You see Crystal lost her father recently. His birthday was Dec. 6. When we looked at the information for Bambi a couple days after she came home with us we realized her birthday was, yep, you guessed it, Dec. 6.

Welcome the family Smalls.

Mike Marzolf is a guest columnist for the Great Bend Tribune and his views don’t necessarily reflect those of the paper. He can be reached at MarzolfM@bartonccc.edu.