Park Hill South pulls away from Park Hill for 14th win

The Park Hill and Park Hill South girls basketball teams came into Monday night’s game having two different kinds of seasons. Park Hill with their 2-11 record has a roster sporting a young group of inexperienced varsity players while Park Hill South’s 13-1 record represented a talented squad coming off an Oak Park Tournament title last week.

For one quarter though, they were almost equals. The Trojans hit some early shots and came out with a burst of aggressive energy where they swarmed the Panthers defensively to gain a 9-3 advantage early in the game. Park Hill South would refocus and battle back at the end of the first quarter as Erica Timmerman banked-in a three point basket at the buzzer to give the Panthers their first lead of the game 11-10.

The Panthers wouldn’t look back as they would steadily increase their lead the rest of the way leading 27-15 at halftime before cruising to a final score of 62-34. South’s Madeline Homoly led all scorers with 19 points.

“I thought our energy level was good, we came out aggressive, then the wind kind of came out of our sails,” Park Hill coach Aaron Neeser said. “We executed, played hard, did the little things, then we just got tired. 20 turnovers kind of does that to you.”

Park Hill will prep for the North Kansas City Tournament next week with a conference game against Ruskin on Thursdasy.

“We’re getting better, little by little,” Neeser said. “The young pups as I call them, are taking steps towards getting them to where they need to be.”

With the victory, Park Hill South improved their record to 14-1 on the season and is looking forward to conference play where they will battle an undefeated Truman team twice in coming weeks. Coach Jenni Orlowski says taking the season one game at a time has really helped keep their focus away from their record.

“I think when we were 12-1, it kind of hit me at that point,” Orlowski said. “Until then, we’ve kind of had our nose to the grindstone. I haven’t been 14-1 as a coach, so this is a first. We’re starting to get some press, we’re ranked 10^th in the state. I have a great group of kids that work hard and take things game to game.”

It hasn’t been without its challenges though as the Panthers lost guard Mackenzie Stout for the season earlier in the year, which has left them with the feeling they have been shorthanded.

“We’ve had some challenges, when we lose Mackenzie,” Orlowski said. “We kind of feel like an underdog since we’re short one that we planned on having.”

Even with a potent offense, the Panthers have relied on their defense for strength and as their record improves it will be valuable in closer games down the stretch of their season.

“Defense has produced offense for us. We’ve probably got the quickest guards out of all the teams we’ve played so far,” Orlowski said. “For every win you have, there’s more on the line. You don’t want to lose, but as you get more wins there is more pressure that comes with that.”

Park Hill South plays Lee’s Summit West before competing in the North Kansas City Tournament next week.

Park Hill sees success in state wrestling tune-up

Park Hill coach Bill Erneste wanted his team to approach last week as a practice run for the state tournament. Three consecutive days of wrestling, first a dual against nationally ranked Kearney and then the two-day Winnetonka Tournament, would closely resemble the three day long state wrestling tournament next month. By winning both, the Trojans had one of their best weeks of the season and built a strong case for being at the top of the rankings in Class 4.

After Kearney came from behind to beat Park Hill earlier this season at the Park Hill Invitational, both schools came into Thursday night’s dual as two of the top teams in the state, and their fan bases were in for a classic matchup. Battling from dual to dual, at the end of the night the Trojans would claim redemption with a 32-20 win over the Bulldogs.

“If you win on the first night of the state tournament, you have one match and one match only. So Kearney was that first match. I couldn’t have been more proud of the fight in our kids, they showed a lot of heart,” Erneste said. “I think it was great for wrestling. You had the Kearney fans and Park Hill fans who packed the gym for two quality wrestling programs that are only 20 miles apart.”

Park Hill would use that victory as momentum the following two days at the Winnetonka Tournament where they placed eight wrestlers on their way to racking up 431 team points and the tournament championship. Sean Hosford, Ke-Shawn Hayes, and John Erneste brought home first place medals. Hunter Roberts, Canten Marriott, Russ Coleman, and Malik Colding placed second while Colston DiBlasi took third.

The title round featured some quality matchups with other top teams like Blue Springs and Seckman, possibly previews of state tournament matchups to come four weeks from now. Overall, the Trojans are satisfied with their past week, but know they aren’t a finished product yet and will be fine tuning in the time leading up to the district tournament on February 9^th.

“We’re on target,” Erneste said. “We want to use this for practice and so far we’ve had a good practice.”

The Trojans will compete in the St. Joe Benton and Oak Grove tournaments over the next two weekends.

Park Hill South has seen success this year with the help of a strong senior class. Until recently, the Panthers have been plagued with some early season injuries and were hoping the Winnetonka Tournament would be one of their first tournaments back at full strength. While the Panthers finished fourth out of the 15 team field, they would see the injury bug catch them again when Logan Gillespie (220) suffered a shoulder injury.

“We’ve been getting stronger as a team until today where we suffered a few injuries,” Park Hill South coach Dan Dunkin said.

The Panthers saw good results from several wrestlers over the weekend with Adam Weatherly and Chase Gray bringing home second place medals. Jimmy Carpenter and George Barth placed third while Alex Weatherly took fourth. Dunkin says the tournament was a good chance to go against some of the best teams in the state to see how they fared.

“We wanted to go against the top three teams in the state to see if we can hang with them, we’re there,” Dunkin said. “We’re going to give it a shot. I was just a little disappointed we couldn’t hang a little more, but we’re not scared though. I like how our kids are wrestling. We just need to be on the other side of the result.”

Dunkin believes postseason success will rely on healing up the rest of their injuries and adding that extra amount of push they’ll need to find themselves in a position to compete at districts and state.

“We need to heal up first, and then we’re going to get into better shape, review film, and do what we have to do,” Dunkin said.

Park Hill South will be competing in the Liberty Tournament this weekend.