Park Hill looks to build on road trip

Park Hill (1-1) is preparing to move on to Week Three action at Lee’s Summit (1-1) after a particularly rough loss to Lee’s Summit West 33-7 last Friday night. Lee’s Summit is coming off a 34-17 loss to Kearney who pulled away with two fourth quarter touchdowns to decide what had previously been a close game.

“They (Lee’s Summit) have a two-year starter at quarterback and 220-pound junior who runs downhill that we need to stop before he gets to the second level,” Park Hill coach Greg Reynolds said. “I think we match-up pretty decent up front against them. If our linebackers keep improving we should be good there. If we take away the deep stuff and tackle, we should be ok.”

Even without the rain-soaked conditions that lasted throughout last Friday’s game, Park Hill knew they would have their hands full against a top-ranked Lee’s Summit West team. The Titans proved it almost immediately as Lee’s Summit West running back Ryan Williams took carries of 27 and 38 yards into the end zone for touchdowns on their first two offensive plays putting the Trojans down 14-0 just minutes into the game.

“They scored two touchdowns on the first two plays because of us not lining up right, which is unacceptable, can’t blame that on rain,” Reynolds said. “When you get down 14-0 on two plays, the wind is kind of taken out of your sail a little bit.”

With a 20-0 lead going into halftime, Austin Burau’s second touchdown of the night put the Titans up 26-0 mid-way through the third quarter.

“They were able to dominate us up front. The rain affected kind of what we wanted to do coming in being able to pass the ball early on,” Reynolds said. “The reality is as I told the kids afterwards, they’re at a level up here, and we’re down here right now.

Park Hill, still trying to find a rhythm offensively, was able to get on the scoreboard in the latter part of the fourth quarter. Following a Lee’s Summit West turnover, Park Hill took over at the Titan 12-yard line where sophomore Stefan McCarthy eventually ran in for a three-yard touchdown to give the Trojans a score.

The story of the game was dominance on the ground as Lee’s Summit West grinded out nearly 340 yards on the ground. Ryan Williams carried the ball 14 times for 138 yards rushing while DeMarcus Edwards added 97 yards of his own on nine carries. Park Hill was only able to produce 24 yards on 37 carries.

“We’re gonna have to do a better job of making passes. Right now we’re sitting under a 33% completion mark and for a spread offense that’s not very good,” Reynolds said. “We need to be running the ball better than we are if that is going to be the case.”

While Park Hill has a huge obstacle now behind them, the rest of the season features some evenly competitive match-ups, a number of which they believe are winnable.

“I think our last seven games are 50/50 games and I don’t think there is any one game we go into where we say ‘we should win this game’ or ‘we probably won’t win this game’,” Reynolds said. “We may be the underdogs in some cases, but we should have a chance to win.”