Winter Round-up: Jan. 7-14

Park Hill Boys Basketball

…faced a talented Liberty North squad to begin 2013. Giving the Eagles a run for their money, the Trojans held a 17-11 lead at halftime before Liberty North edged closer and eventually ahead for a 46-32 victory.

Erik Stratman led the Trojans in scoring with ten points while Kenny McConnell and Devonte Thornton added eight points.

  

“We defended very well and competed the whole game against a very good team on the road,” Park Hill coach David Garrison said.

Park Hill is now 2-9 as they head into action at the Basehor-Linwood Tournament.

Park Hill South Wrestling

…got off to the second half of their season with a bang last week with two blowout victories over North Kansas City (72-10) and Ruskin (75-6). The Panthers won 25 of the 28 total matches with 17 of those wins coming from pins.

Park Hill South was at the Center Invite over the weekend where they brought home seven individual titles. They included Alex Fortuna (120), Jimmy Carpenter (132), Adam Weatherly (152), Alex Weatherly (160), Kenric Cook (170), Chase Gray (182), and Logan Gillespie (220). Cody Vaughn and Tyler Blyth were runners-up in their respective weight classes.

They will compete in the Winnetonka Invite this weekend where Coach Dan Dunkin says there will be some tough teams and individual wrestlers.

“Over Christmas break we had some injured wrestlers return to the room. It was nice to be wrestling close to full strength again,” Dunkin said.  The real test will be next Saturday at the Winnetonka tournament.  Most weight classes will have multiple state ranked wrestlers competing.”

Park Hill Girls Basketball

…after a significant loss to Truman (61-20) to begin the week, Park Hill battled Lee’s Summit West in a suburban conference showdown. Earning an early lead, Park Hill found themselves trailing only 19-18 at halftime. The Titans come out aggressively to build a ten point lead in the second half which would hold steady through the end of the game, where they would record a 51-41 win over Park Hill.

Coach Aaron Neeser says his team is working on improving fundamentals. With such a young team, he says he’s seeing it every day a little at a time.

Now 2-10, Park Hill are playing in the Basehor-Linwood Tournament this week.

Park Hill South Boys Basketball

…let a close game slip away from their grasp early last week with a 40-36 loss to a highly-ranked Liberty team. This followed their prior loss to Liberty North in the William Jewell Tournament title game December 29^th to account for the Panthers’ first back-to-back losses of the year.

“We let it slip away. I think we had them beat,” Park Hill South coach Rick Zych said. “They were ranked higher than us, but we were in position to win.”

This made Friday night’s game against Staley one the Panthers wanted to get out to a quick start. That they did, with a pair of threes from Payton Meek and Anthony Woods that put South up 19-7 at the end of the first quarter.

“We’ve lost our last two games. So we knew tonight would be big,” Zych said. “We talked about starting fast, Payton and Anthony hit some shots early.”

They wouldn’t look back from there as they extended their lead in the second half to as much as 19 points before closing out the game for a final 60-45 victory. Woods finished the night with 18 points while Robert Lane recorded a double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Meek contributed 14 points while Hudson Welty added 10 points.

The Panthers displayed a strong sense of discipline in their victory, picking their shots carefully as they picked apart a sometimes quick and aggressive Staley defense. Zych says being able to do that will help them succeed when district play starts.

“We have to get them in the right spots, it just takes discipline. It’s tough especially when they want to get up and down the court,” Zych said. “We want to look down the road, our team goals have a lot to do with February and March.”

Park Hill South, now 9-3, is playing in the North Kansas City Tournament this week.

Park Hill Wrestling

…brought home a first place finish at the Capital City Invitational in Jefferson City last weekend by placing 11 wrestlers in the top four with six winning title round matchups. Individual champions included Shawn Hosford (106), Ke-Shawn Hayes (113), John Erneste (120), Hunter Roberts (126), Canton Marriott (132), and Malik Colding (170).  Russ Coleman (145), Colston DiBlasi (152), and August Sobbing (182) were runners-up while Paxton DiBlasi (138) and Anthony Enriques (220) placed fourth.

Park Hill next looks to an anticipated rematch with Kearney at home on Thursday. Kearney barely beat Park Hill in early December when they took first place at the Park Hill Invitational. They’ll then compete in the Winnetonka Invitational over the weekend.