Trojans best Panthers, look to title game

With scattered showers and sometimes thunderstorms canceling a majority of last week’s games, the Park Hill and Park Hill South baseball teams had a longer break between their final regular season game and first round district games than they would have liked. The weather was no different this past Saturday, but district tournament officials were determined to get the game in even with the variation of light sprinkles and steady drizzle. The muddy dirt and gray skies were equally as satisfying as the performance on the field.

“We knew something that shouldn’t determine a district game between two good teams at this level might come into play,” Park Hill coach Greg Reynolds said of how the conditions could affect the game.

Pitching would come into play as pivotal in such conditions and the first two innings demonstrated just that as the only base runner came from Park Hill when Nathan Shores was hit with a pitch, but he was caught leaning and picked-off before the next pitch was thrown to end the inning.

“Anytime the ball touched the ground, you’d need a new one,” Reynolds said. “After two or three pitches it’d be soaked.”

Things picked up in the third when Park Hill’s Daniel Jessen led off the inning with the game’s first hit. After Jessen was sacrificed to second, a Nick Hughes line drive to left field was dropped leaving the Trojans with runners at second and third with one out. Park Hill South’s Pat Brady got out of the jam by delivering two important outs with the final being a strikeout of J.D. Weyer. In the top of the fourth, Park Hill South got on the board when a failed pick-off attempt at first got past the first baseman allowing Matt Robaska to score from third to make the score 1-0.

Passed balls from both teams all day were caused by the sloppy ground conditions, but came back to bite Park Hill South in the bottom of the sixth as they gave up four unearned runs to the Trojans. A James Vega walk followed by two passed balls allowed him to score to tie the game 1-1. With runners at first and second and two outs, Shores’ swinging bunt was thrown into left field in an attempt to get Chris Burr at third, which allowed him to score. Alec Kennedy and Shores later scored on two additional passed balls making the score 4-1.

For the most part, the game was well-pitched by both sides. Each team only had three hits while Park Hill struck out eleven batters and Park Hill South got five. The Trojans closed out the game in the top of the seventh and advanced to the district semifinals against Kearney.

After lossing earlier in the season 10-0, a tremendous performance from pitcher Daniel Jessen allowed the Trojans to upend Kearney's title hopes as they upset the Bulldogs 7-4 to advance to Saturday's title game against St. Joseph Central.