Experienced Trojan golfers look to postseason

Girls high school golf season can be gone in the blink of an eye. Five weeks is all that separates the first week of match play and the conference tournament. For Park Hill golf coach Tari Garner, it’s been a season that has gone by almost too quickly as she’s coaching one of the most talented teams she’s seen in recent years. The Trojans feature two state qualifiers from a year ago, Anna Kloeppel and Stephanie Atkinson, along with Bailey Warlan, Sam Brunker, and Erica Crainshaw. All are returning varsity players from last year.

“We’ve got a great group of girls with great attitude,” Garner said. “It’s gone so fast.”

After catching up with the team last week during a match with Staley, Garner talked about how she is seeing signs of the team peaking at the right time.

“We’re seeing a tremendous drop (in scores) right now which is telling us we’re doing something right,” Garner said. “On average, we’re in the 80’s and we started in the 90’s.”

While the Trojan golfers have seen their scores drop, Garner hoped a lot of the kinks some were experiencing would be worked out with some practice days the team has coming up.

“I don’t know if it’s pressure or if they have to work more on the range,” Garner said. “I think what we need to do is back off and let them figure it out on their own. We’ll have time this week before conference.”

“I think we know our practice levels need to come up and focus needs to get a lot better,” Kloeppel said.

“I’m trying to not worry as much this year because last year we put a lot of pressure on ourselves,” Crainshaw said.

Of course, the short season has been a long time in the making with this group making it a habit of playing and working throughout the summer to come into the season as prepared as possible.

“We worked like crazy this summer and would always have at least one day a week in the summer where we could all work together in addition to our individual time,” Crainshaw said.

“I definitely practiced more this year than in the past,” Kloeppel added.

Although an individual sport, these Park Hill golfers have found improving individually helped their teammates as well, whether it is in practice or getting through a bad round.

“We know what our strengths and weaknesses are, so when we have time we spend it working on those things,” Crainshaw said. “We all build off each other.”

“We all try to help each other so if one of us struggles one day we try to get them through it,” Kloeppel said. “I think when you see one person getting better it motivates you to get better too.”

The conference tournament is this Monday with the district tournament the following week.

Trojans topple Truman, travel to Jeff City

After a 61-20 trampling of Truman last Friday, this week the 3-1 Park Hill will make a long road trip to Jefferson City. The Blue Jays’ program is high on success and tradition, but they’re coming off a narrow 39-36 defeat last week against Columbia Rockbridge and are now 2-2 on the year.

“We’re going to be in a hostile environment with a good team and proud tradition. We have to be ready to play and if we do what we’re supposed to it will be a very good football game,” coach Greg Reynolds said. “I hope these kids represent what this program is, which is one I think is pretty good too.”

With the return of offensive tackle Adam Vanderpool to the lineup, the Trojans were able to turn out one of their most balanced and point producing performances of the season last week with 539 yards of total offense. Making his season debut, Vanderpool provides experience as a returning starter to an offensive line that has experienced some key injuries early in the season. This continued last week as junior Zach Anderson made his first start at guard due to an injury.

“It feels great, I was missing it a lot,” Vanderpool said. “I just have to play hard every play and let those young guys know you can’t take plays off.”

Park Hill jumped out to a 20-0 lead before Truman began to exploit a perceived weakness in the Trojan passing defense with a series of passes which led to a 5-yard touchdown pass to make it 20-7. Although up 34-7 at the half after several touchdown runs from Trace Norfleet, the Patriots kept attacking the flats of the Trojan defense which opened it up for a 41-yard touchdown pass and another deep pass which led to a touchdown.

“The flats, that’s where most of their passes were going. When we got to the flats, they went deep, so they mixed it up well,” linebacker De’Aris Flint said.

The final Truman score halfway through the third quarter to make it 41-20 was their last as Park Hill scored on the first play of the next drive when Nathan Wilson hit Flint for an 83-yard touchdown pass.

Park Hill’s 369 rushing yards was their best running performance of the season which is starting to resemble their ideal offensive play allocation which has heavily relied on the passing game prior to last week.

“It helps a lot especially when we play teams with two safeties. They play for the pass, so when we get the running game going, we just go over the top,” said Flint who had three catches for 105 yards and a touchdown.

Truman’s 252 pass yards was not a point of pride for the Trojan defense, but only giving up 19 rushing yards showed their run defense had stepped up over recent games. Although tackling can never be good enough, it’s been drilled into the players’ mindset as a key to their success.

“Tackling, tackling well. Our run blocking is getting better, but tackling needs to get a lot better,” Flint said.