Coming off impressive senior campaigns on the basketball court, North Platte’s Landon Bartlett, Kruise Patch and Josie Roach were all selected to play in the Lions Club All-Star Classic at North Central Missouri College on June 4.
The all-star classic is for recent high school graduates who are in a certain geographical area, referred to as District 26-M4. The players are selected by being nominated by their respective coaches and play against each other.
Left to right: North Platte 2022 graduates Landon Bartlett, Kruise Patch and Josie Roach were all selected to play in the Lions Club All-Star Classic at North Central Missouri College on June 4.
The Lions Club All-Star Classic has been around since 1990 with various different locations throughout the years where the athletes stay the night at the dorms and are fed breakfast in the morning before the games are played and fed lunch with their families in the afternoon. It always takes place on the first Saturday of June with each team having a head coach and an assistant coach who draft the nominated players on to each roster; the head coach changes every year, however, each head coach returns as the assistant for the next season.
The athletes always arrive on Friday – the day before the games – to check in with the teams and coaches, along with getting a day to practice. The North Platte graduates were three of multiple players around the District 26-M4 who were able to lace up their basketball shoes one last time.
Bartlett and Patch led North Platte to its best season since 2016, while Roach was the leading scorer on the Lady Panthers’ team that ended the season with the No. 1 seed in the Class 2 District 15 Tournament and an 18-9 record. Bartlett was selected on Team Purple and won it all, while Patch’s team – Team White – took third place.