Park Hill girls welcome return of senior leader

When senior guard Kyleesha Weston suffered a concussion towards the end of December, the Park Hill Lady Trojans lost their leading scorer and top defender. In a three game stretch leading up to Monday night’s game against St. Joe Central, Weston was forced to watch the team she considered her own go 1-2 including a 51-22 thumping from Truman in a conference game last week.

Stepping up for Park Hill to fill the void was senior guard Bethany Sullinger who led the team in scoring with 11 points per game during the three game stretch including a 17 point game against Liberty North in a 47-38 victory. K.K. Rettinger also stepped up contributing an average of eight points a game.

While Coach Aaron Neeser says Weston’s absence did not change the overall team philosophy and how they approach the game, he realizes the difficulties they encounter without her on the court because of her ability to not only score, but draw multiple defenders and find open teammates who can.

“I don’t think our philosophy changed,” Neeser said. “She just opens the floor up for us. She’s a player that makes everyone around us better. We just had to work a little harder to score.”

Probably most frustrated about the concussion was Weston herself, who couldn’t wait to get back on the floor Monday night with her teammates.

“When you sit there at practice on the sidelines, you want everything for your team, but you want most to get back into the game,” Weston said.

She came back in a big way, leading both teams in scoring with 22 points. Despite being down throughout the game and never holding a lead, the Trojans gave St. Joe Central a run for their money battling back from nine points down to narrow the lead to two with just seconds remaining. Unable to convert a put-back on a missed free throw left Park Hill on the short end of a 58-56 loss.

Even with the loss Park Hill is ready to move forward with the second half of their season and focus on the two things that have troubled them throughout the season.

“It wasn’t only good for me (to return), but good for my teammates because I’m able to get them open,” Weston said. “I’d say fouling and getting in there to get rebounds. If we rebound, we win games like this. If we do that we show who the better team is.”

Now at 4-6 on the season and 0-2 in conference, the Lady Trojans travel to Lee's Summit West Thursday before participating in the Basehor-Linwood Tournament next week.

Winter Roundup: Jan. 3-9

Park Hill Wrestling
...after a rough first half of the season participating in some of the region's toughest wrestling tournaments, battling through injuries, and dealing with the growing pains that come with having a young team, the Park Hill Wrestling team is bouncing back to start the second half of their season. A pair of victories last week against traditionally strong teams Lee's Summit West and St. Joe Central early in the week followed by wins against Columbia Rockbridge 42-15 and Staley 25-22, has given the Trojans momentum as they look to start their ascent towards the time when they need to be at their best, the district and state tournament.

"Over Christmas we talked about how there are two halves to the season, the season is what counts," Coach Bill Erneste said.

Last season, Park Hill experienced a similar tough start to their season, but were able to roll through the second half of their schedule, taking first in the district tournament on the way to a third place finish at state. It's something Erneste says can be especially evident in younger teams and a view into their improvement from start to finish in a season.

"We're used to seeing that with young teams," Erneste said. "We went back to the cave, which is the practice room, we shut the doors, let people heal, and we're coming out ready to make a run.We have some guys in our lineup really making a push to move forward."

Park Hill South Boys Basketball
... in a rematch of their overtime victory from the William Jewell Tournament, Liberty came to Park Hill South last week. It was another nail-biter, but instead of a three pointer to send the game into overtime, it was Park Hill South this time that fell on the wrong side of the final score. The Panthers, down one point at the half, had several chances in the last minute to even the score, but the Blue Jays edged them out 41-37. Anthony Woods led Park Hill South with 12 points.

Later in the week the Panthers found themselves overmatching Raytown, but unable to pull away on the scoreboard. Nonetheless, Park Hill South pulled out a 38-27 victory. Coach John Sedler was satisfied with the victory, but not the performance as they went 1-9 from three point range in the first half in what he attributed to  a young team needing to learn how to maintain and hold a lead against a team he thought they were better than the score reflected.

"I don't care if we shoot three's as long as we go inside and move it around the outside as well," Sedler said.

But it's easy to point out the particulars in a team that's had such early season success, now 10-4 with a 5-0 conference recording going into Tuesday night's tough matchup against Raytown South. Brian Robinson has seen more action at the point guard position, moving Anthony Woods, the team's top scorer, over to the two-guard position putting him in a more natural scoring role. Moving forward, Sedler says the two keys for the Panthers will be handling defensive pressure by allowing fewer turnovers and reboundings.

"Everyone is upping the ante with defensive pressure this time of year," Sedler said. "We've been concentrating more on rebounding, we went back to the basic fundamentals of it. Rebounding is pretty simple, you just have to make a decision you're going to get it. You can call it different things or use different techniques. If we get 5 guys to make that commitment we're going to get it 100%, if we get 4 guys, then 80% of the time, and so on. Our last couple games we've done better at it."

Park Hill South travels to Belton in another conference match-up Friday night.

Park Hill Boys Basketball
...snapped a five game losing streak against North Kansas City last week with a 65-47 win. Park Hill was led by Connor Farmer in scoring with 23 points. Also contributing were Zach Anderson and John Harris with 11 points a piece. They'll travel to play Truman on Friday. The Trojans are now 4-6 on the year.

Park Hill South Girls Basketball
...started the year off with encouraging results. Despite losing, the 63-61 loss at William Chrisman earlier last week, the Panthers offense is now averaging more than 50 points a game, most of which is being spread evenly among players.

"The scoring is beginning to really be spread out as the girls share the ball more and play more as a team.  I’m very pleased with our progress so far," Coach Jenny Orlowski said. "In the Chrisman game, we just made some mental errors in the last three minutes of the game that cost us that one."

Later in the week they used that encouragement to blowout Belton 65-19 to add a conference victory to their record. They were led in scoring by Madeline Homoly who added 10 points. Seven other players contributed with seven or more points a piece. Morgan Keesee and Jessica Lee pulled in seven and six rebounds respectively. 

Samantha Roy continues to lead the Panthers in scoring, averaging 9.9 points a game. Madeline Homoly and Mackenzie Stout aren't far behind with 8.4 and 7.8 points a game. Homoly also leads the team in rebounds with 5.5 a game.

The Lady Panthers are now 6-5 overall, 3-2 in conference and host Fort Osage Thursday night before playing in the Oak Park Tournament next week.

Park Hill South Swimming
... took second place behind Notre Dame de Sion in the Park Hill Invitational over the weekend with 278 team points. They were led by strong performances in two of the three relay events including the second place finish in the 200 yard medley with swimers Mariah Bryant, Helen Yeater, Rachael Norfleet, and Miranda Henderson. Taking third in the 200 free relay was Henderson, Bryant, Samantha Burford, and Olivia McLain. Hannah Bortnick placed second in the one meter diving portion while McLain placed second in the 100 meter freestyle. Norfleet took third in the 100 breaststroke. They'll participate in the KC Classic this weekend.

Park Hill Swimming
...placed 11th as they hosted the Park Hill Invitational last weekend with 105.5 points. Madison Heydinger led the Trojan swimmers with a second place finish in the 200 freestyle. They will compete in the KC Classic this weekend.