The Central Kansas Christian Basketball League (CKCBL) launched its first basketball season with four committed teams. The four teams that have joined the league are Central Kansas Christian Academy (CKCA), Holy Family, Chase, and Stafford. There are 14 total regular season games that will be conducted between the four teams, and the season will conclude with an end-of-season tournament hosted at CKCA on December 9th and 10th.
“We are beyond blessed and grateful for this vision to finally come to light,” said CKCBL President and CKCA Head Coach, Ethan Thomas. “My wife, Ashlie, and I have a huge passion for sports and wanted to bring our love of basketball to a younger age group. We see the need in our community for our youth to be involved in sports at a younger age, not only to keep them active and grow their skills at an earlier age, but also to direct and guide them in making good decisions and being accountable to their teammates, coaches, and school.”
A total of 21 local sponsors donated to this season’s league. Businesses or individual donors were able to select between three different package levels.
“We are absolutely thrilled at the amount of support that the community has already shown toward the league,” Thomas said. “To see the community and our sponsors jump on board with this idea and being willing to support and cheer us on is a feeling we cannot quite describe. We cannot thank everyone enough for their time, donations, and prayers to help us get this league up and going.”
The CKCBL is made up of four teams this season, with other teams and schools already in contact wanting to learn more about next year’s league. Holy Family and CKCA played a total of five games last year and added Chase and Stafford to the list of this season’s teams. The team and league representatives include:
Ethan Thomas - CKCA Team Representative
Ashlie Thomas - CKCA Team Representative
Debbie Hagans - Holy Family Team Representative
Mitch Light - Chase Team Representative
Nicholas Minks - Stafford Team Representative
The league is broken out into boys and girls “A” and “B” teams, with 3rd & 4th-grade players making up the “B” teams and 5th & 6th-grade players making up the “A” teams. Each game will be formatted with 4 six-minute quarters and other standard rules that would be followed by in middle school and high school sports. Some game formatting accommodations have been adapted for the “B” teams. Weekday games will tip off at 4:30 PM, and weekend games are broken out into AM and PM games to accommodate multiple teams playing on the same day. Weekend AM games will tip-off at 9:00 AM and PM games will tip-off at 2:00 PM. All hosting teams will provide concession stands, with profits going toward their team Booster Club. Cheerleading is also an option for each school if desired.
“There are so many life objectives that our athletes can take away from this league,” Thomas said. “They will be working on the fundamentals of basketball and cheer, getting the live playing time that they typically wouldn’t be getting until middle school, working on team building and communication skills, building confidence within themselves, and most importantly we get the opportunity to tell all of these children about Jesus Christ.”
The Central Kansas Christian Basketball League encourages the public to support and watch the games. You can download a schedule and keep up with upcoming league details by following and visiting: www.facebook.com/ckcbleague. If you have questions, you can contact the league at ckcbleague@gmail.com.