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.

Spring Roundup: May 10- May 15

Park Hill Boys Track

The Park Hill Boys Track team will have a strong presence this weekend at the state sectional meet at Blue Springs South High School. Placing second in this past weekend’s district meet with 128 team points, they’ll be represented in 15 different events from a broad range of categories including both short and long-distance, throws, and jumps. The top four finishers in each competition qualified for the sectional meet and it will be the same case in moving onto the state meet next weekend. First place finishers included James Leach in the 800 meter dash, Adrien Esaw in the 110 hurdles (2nd in the 300 hurdles), Nick Smith in the shot put, and the 4x800 relay team of Fernando Garcia, James Leach, Nathan Koehler, and Ricardo Garcia.

Park Hill Girls Track

The Park Hill Girls Track team squeaked into the top four in their district meet last weekend with their 62 team points. Although they would have liked to see better performances from athletes who just barely missed the cut, the Trojans will have representatives in five events. Helena Hudson continued a strong season with a second place finish in the 100 hurdles. The 4x100 and 4x800 relay teams placed second and fourth respectively while Stephanie Atkinson in the pole vault and Betty Grauberger in the triple jump both placed fourth. Park Hill barely missed qualifying in a couple events including long jump (6th), discus (6th), shot put (5th), 100 meter dash (5th), and 1600 meter run (5th).

Park Hill Boys Tennis

Park Hill Boys Tennis brought home another consecutive district title last week. Qualifying as a team, Sam Barth, Mike Merchant, Brian Hillix, Bryan Willis, Michael Jones and Austin Caldwell will represent the Trojans in the state playoffs. Barth qualified as an individual to continue in the single tournament while the doubles duo of Merchant and Hillix will compete in the doubles bracket. Regionals were held Monday at Park Hill as the Trojans looked to avenge an early season loss to Liberty.