Three seniors to lead Park Hill golf team

Trying to get your swing back after a long winter can be one of the most frustrating things for avid golfers, but along with hitting familiar with the links again the Park Hill boys golf team will also be developing what coach Zach Dorrell describes as an inexperienced and, in some places, young team. While the Trojans will be led at the top by three seniors in Travis Perry, Collin Pummill, and Austin Dorward, only Perry and Dorward have varsity experience leaving the rest of the 15 member squad in a situation to be exposed to their first serious competition.

“We don’t have a lot of kids that play just golf,” Dorrell said of his team. “It’s going to be a good year for them to get some experience, play against the competition, and get them to buy into taking the game more serious into the future.”

Junior Colby Bueller and senior Robert Lawrence will likely round out the last two spots on the varsity roster for the Trojans. Park Hill has their work cut out for them, but Dorrell believes his team should easily be able to collectively shoot under a 330 by the end of the year. Currently holding the top spot on the roster, Perry appears to be the most consistent early in the season.

“I think Travis has an opportunity,” Dorrell said of his chances of qualifying for sectionals. “He’s a real steady player and should be consistently around an 80 or 82; possibly drop down to 78 or 79 once in awhile.”

Although lacking in experience, the Trojans are a fairly grounded team and realize that could benefit them on the course.

“They’re all good kids, none of them are real flashy, but they have good attitudes and they understand they’re not going to the tour,” Dorrell said. “We have to understand what our capabilities are and play up to those.”

Finishing third in their conference last year, the Trojans believe they can match or beat that this year and talented Lee’s Summit West and St. Joe Central teams will likely be the contenders. The beginning of April is when Dorrell believes they’ll have a good idea of what they can achieve as a team when they host the Darren Floyd Memorial Tournament at Tiffany Greens.

“Our tournament is a good one, barring weather, and it can tell us where we’re at,” Dorrell said.

Park Hill will compete in two big tournaments prior to their own at Lee’s Summit and Ray-Pec. They open the season this week with duals against Truman and Platte County.

Park Hill South boys golf returns three starters

Coach Larry Torgerson has been able to generate some fairly successful results over recent years with his boys’ golf teams and this year appears like it will be no different. Coming off 10-3 season which included a second place finish at conference and third place finish at districts last year, the Panthers return three starters: state qualifier senior Cameron Probst and sophomores Matt Barry and Austin Dorrell. While the rest of the lineup is still being developed, their three experienced players provide quite an impressive place to start.

One benefit Torgerson sees to his team’s past success is the amount of kids that tryout the following season. It’s generated some higher than average interest and that’s a problem Torgerson is glad to have.

“We are fortunate this season to have 32 boys trying out for our golf team,” Torgerson said. “That is one of the great things about being a golf coach, knowing that 32 boys want to play on our team and be part of our tradition at Park Hill South.”

Once the team is narrowed down to about 18 players, there will be one central and simple theme for them to live by as the season goes on: become better players each day.

“This goal alone will allow us as a team to achieve Conference Championships, District Championships, Sectional Championships, and State Championships,” Torgerson said.

With the short span of time a high school golf session encompasses, six weeks from start to finish, this basic goal is easier said than done, but if accomplished yields results. A highly psychological game, the broad idea of improvement is best left as straight forward as their coach says it. When asked about the new conference opponents his team will face with realignment, Torgerson doesn’t mention a specific threat, but refers back to their overall purpose.

“We are in a new conference this year with new teams,” Torgerson said. “If we meet our goal, everything will be ok.”

In additional to hosting several home matches at the notorious National II Golf Course, the Panthers will be able to gauge their progress early at the Lee’s Summit North Invitational and Sedalia Tournament.

Park Hill track teams striving for balance

There’s one thing Park Hill track coaches Mark Gourley and Tari Garner know about their respective teams so far in this early season and it’s that they’ll be fairly balanced in the amount of talent displayed on the track this spring. With just under 200 athletes participating between the two programs, there are plenty of events for them to choose from leaving their coaches with a handful of reasons to be optimistic about the upcoming season.

“We’re balanced, we’ve got good kids at each event,” Garner said of her team. “We’re also going to be young, so it’s going to be a developmental year as well.”

“We’re also looking at some balance as well,” Gourley added. “You have to just get out there and do it, we don’t know what we have until the KU Relays a lot of the time. That’s a good measuring stick to where people are in shape and the weather starts to turn around.”

Last year, the boys brought home a conference title led by some strong relay team performances, particularly the 4x800. Cain Winebrenner returns from that 12th place state relay team, but will also be defending his conference title in the one-mile run. Also returning will be Burt Taylor, Quinton Noble, Dondrell Hardiman, Levante Hickman, and John Saucito.

Senior Trace Norfleet, who missed last season due to injury after winning the state long jump title the season before, is back and looking to add points in several events. Nick Smith who set the school record for the shot put last season returns after a top five finish at state.Sectional qualifier Luke Bossert returns in the pole vault.

“(Trace) looks good and we’re hoping the form comes back from his sophomore year.” Gourley said. “Nick will be strong again this year and we hope Luke picks up where he left off.”

On the girl’s side, there isn’t as good of an idea of what to expect because of the young make up of the team. While the Trojans return athletes like Stephanie Atkinson in the pole vault who just missed qualifying for state last year, Bailey Cashen in the high jump, and the sectional qualifying 4x800 relay team, the rest of the event field is up for grabs and Garner sees that as a positive.

“There’s not one person who is going to be a top-three person in four events, so we’re going to have to work on bringing more people along to the next level,” Garner said. “It will make us work really hard in every event and will make us more balanced as a team because we won’t be able to necessarily count on any particular event.”

Potential surprises and breakout seasons might take place in the high and triple jump along with the 4x100 and 4x200 relay teams that will feature some young sprinters.

Neither coach denied the unpredictable natural of how their seasons would play out, but both embraced the wide range of possibilities it presented.

“It’s going to be an interesting year because of the dynamics of having a lot of open sports up for grabs,” Garner said.

“But that’s the fun part though, seeing who will emerge,” Gourley added.

Park Hill South track teams feature plenty of experience

The Park Hill South boys and girls track team have a lot to look forward to in 2011 as they both return a good amount of athletes from last season’s teams. While the boys hope to jump up a spot from their second place conference finish, the girls will be in a position to defend their conference title for the first time in quite awhile.

“We had a great end to the season last year, first time we’ve done that in several years,” coach Andy Keefer said. “We essentially return everyone except for one of our throwers, so we’ve got a good group coming back.”

The Panthers’ 4x800 and 4x200 relay teams were the only teams to advance into sectionals from the district meet last season so with a team that features a quality group of seniors there is a focus on increasing the number of qualifiers.

“We’re going to be solid overall. If we work hard throughout the year, good things will happen at the end of the season,” Keefer said. “We have a great group of kids, especially in regards to senior leadership.”

Some of those senior athletes to keep tabs on these spring will be jumpers Jen Carlson and Lauren Goner, sprinters Alice Edwards and Jill McDaniel, and thrower Mallory Ross.

Keefer sees the conference as more difficult this season particularly in regards to the addition of Raytown South, which he believes will be one of their top competitors for the conference title. No matter what the competition, he says there is always one constant for his teams.

“We focus really on individual goals, not only what happens on the track, but also in the classroom to be the best they can be,” Keefer said.

On the boys’ side, coach Clay Lenhert will be harnessing a host of state and sectional qualifiers from last year. James Bowlin and DJ Johnson return hoping to improve on their state qualifying performances along with Josh Gordon, Christina Hildebrandt, Josh Hunt, and Daniel Jones. While these athletes will standout, Lenhert hopes their relays will serve as a consistent place for team points throughout the season.

“We try to focus and encourage quality Relay performances,” Lenhert said.

Mirroring his coaching counterpart on the girls’ side, Lenhert focuses his efforts on getting his team’s best performance at the end of year while also motivating his athletes to set their own goals in the process.

“Another goal is to coach and train our athletes to peak as individuals and as a team at the appropriate time of the season,” Lenhert said. “A key to our success will be to focus on ourselves... We can only control our effort and attitude. Our performance will be a reflection of how we apply effort and attitude to what abilities we have been given.”