Since the beginning of the season, Park Hill was looking forward to last week’s slate of games. It was going to be a way of gauging their progress and possibly determine their conference standings finish. Unfortunately for the Lady Trojans, the week didn’t produce the results they had hoped for after only winning one out of three games, but Coach Brian Rockers team doesn’t have time to reflect too deeply about it with another big week including four games.
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Coming into the week they were tied with William Chrisman for second and hoping to knock off conference leader Truman. After quality performances at the Basehor Linwood tournament, Park Hill came out flat against the Chrisman Bears early in the week and ended up losing by a significant margin of 59-35. Kyleesha Weston and Emma Gossett scored ten points apiece. One constant throughout the season for the Trojans is that the contributions of post players Laura Bennett and Katy Plummer have been essential in Park Hill victories. Both combined were held to five points in the loss to William Chrisman.
“We didn’t show up and didn’t compete,” Rockers said. “They made a lot of outside points and got their post player the ball.”
The Lady Trojans rallied later in the week against Oak Park in a physical, grind it out game. This time Bennett and Plummer combined for eight and 11 points respectively along with eight point performances from seniors Helena Hudson and Spenser Rhodus. Although the game was fairly close throughout, the Trojans took care of business with the 42-36 victory.
“We made enough plays, nothing really fancy or flashy about it,” Rockers said. “We did a good job of taking a lot of stuff away from their bigger players.”
Friday night brought one of Park Hill’s bigger challenges of the season in a rematch against conference leader Truman. The Patriots were undefeated entering the game. With a win, Park Hill could hold out hope of a possible conference championship, but with a lose Truman would all but clinch the first place trophy. Both teams got out to a slow first quarter start, but Truman got hot in the second quarter taking a 17-8 lead at the five minute mark. This could be credited to Truman’s half-court trap which gave the Trojan backcourt some difficulties. With halftime approaching though, the Trojans fought back on the heels of Kyleesha Weston who hit a huge three-pinter with under a minute to go to cut the lead to 21-18. The third quarter proved to be devastating for Park Hill as they were outscored 15-4 in the third quarter. A late fourth quarter rally proved to be insufficient as Truman went on to defeat Park Hill by a score of 52-41.
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“When we attack zones we do these things and other times we just don’t attack,” Rockers said of some of his team’s offensive troubles. “We’re just running our sets and just not looking to score.”
“I think we’re upbeat. They were down after the game, but our motto from here on out is to have winning weeks, especially when we’re having those three and four game weeks,” Rockers said.
Park Hill looks to another big week with an appearance in the North Kansas City Tournament and a Saturday game against rival Park Hill South, which is a makeup of a previous game cancelled from early January. With two regular season contests on the books between the two schools, district seeding could create a third meeting during district play in late February. Park Hill will be battling for a two seed over the next couple weeks behind what will most likely be a number one seeded Liberty team.
