Spring Weekly Roundup: May 17-21

Park Hill and Park Hill South Golf
Park Hill South's Matthew Barry finished with a 171 in two rounds at the Missouri Class 2 State Golf Tournament last week. A second round 90 set him back several places after his first round of 81 put him in the middle of the pack coming into the second day. Park Hill's Travey Perry got off to a slow start as he started off the tournament with a 97, but concluded the tournament with a solid 85 to finish with a two round total of 182, good enough for 95th. Nicholas Schleisman was not far behind with his 190.

Park Hill South Girls Soccer
...it was the matchup they had been waiting for all season. Not making it to Tuesday night's sectional matchup with Liberty wasn't an option and last week the Panthers took care of business in the last step towards reaching this week's head to head dual between the Northland's two most powerful soccer programs. Their throttling of William Chrisman in the district semifinal by a score of 11-1 led to a title game meeting with Truman. In Panther-line fashion, South took home the district title with a convincing 5-0 victory after three consecutive trips to the title game and coming up short.

With a 3-1 loss to Liberty in their sectional round matchup Tuesday night, the Park Hill South Panthers ended one of their highest performing seasons in school history. Down 2-1 mid-way through the second half, South came close to tying it up when a handful of near-range Panther shots on goal were knocked away or secured by the Liberty goalie. Moments later, one of the state’s most dynamic players, Shea Groom, took the ball the other way and eventually sent a perfectly placed kick past the finger tips of South goalie Alexis Mikulich for what would be a momentum changing goal in the game. The Panthers never recovered from the two goal deficit. South ended the year with a 22-4-1 record. Despite a recording setting season, the Panthers only graduate three seniors and return a majority of an athletic and talented roster to what will surely be another competitor next year.

Park Hill and Park Hill South Boys Tennis
After two stellar seasons, it seemed at times that the Park Hill and Park Hill South boys tennis teams were on parallel paths leading to their sectional round matchup last weekend at Minor Park in south Kansas City. Racking up dual victory after dual victory both schools stormed through the regular season with one of the only Park Hill South losses coming at the hands of their counterparts to the north, Park Hill. Last Saturday, after winning the district title the previous week, the Panthers were able to vindicate their early season loss with a 5-3 victory which propelled them to a quarterfinal appearance against Rockhurst. Falling behind early, Griffin Smith came back to defeat Park Hill's Michael Jones 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 to propel the Panthers towards the next round. Despite quickly falling 5-0 to end their final four dreams against Rockhurst, South's goal of raising the profile of its program to match and, in this year's case, exceed the one previously established by Park Hill was achieved.

Although both teams' collective seasons are over, both Park Hill and Park Hill South's top doubles pairs qualified for the state tournament to played this weekend. South's Griffin Smith and Zack Royle defeated St. Joe Central's pair of Kyle Shade and Patrick Cargill by a 6-1, 6-0 score. Also advancing to the state tournament is Park Hill's doubles pair of Austin Caldwell and Blake Barnard who with a score of 6-3, 6-2 defeated North Kansas City's Alija Omerovic and Gregory Tluscik.

Park Hill Boys Track
In what is surely becoming old for the Park Hill boys track team, they once again finished a solid second as a team last weekend in the state sectional track meet at Staley High School with their 58 team points. The Trojans advanced five events to the state track meet this weekend. Dondrell Hardiman continued his move up the ranks with his third place finish in the 300 hurdles. The 4x200 and 4x800 relay teams will compete next weekend with their third and fourth place respective placements. Nick Smith will also be making the trip to Jefferson City his fourth place finishes in the discus and shot put. Their total number of event qualifiers could have been nearly double that amount if some fifth place finishes had found themselves finishing just one place higher, therefore crossing into the top four qualifying threshold. The 4x100 relay team, Quenton Noble in the 200 meter dash, and Devon Belew in the 400 meter dash all came one place short of extending their season. Also coming up short of a state appearance in the long jump and triple jump was Trace Norfleet, one time long jump state champion, who had been looking to return to top form all season after being sidelined due to injury his junior season.

Park Hill South Boys Track
Park Hill South wasn't able to qualify as many athletes as they would have liked, but the one athlete they do have going will be coming into the state meet with some strong performances behind him. Senior James Bowlin took first in the 800 meter run once in the sectional meet just as he did in the district and much of this season. Bowlin is a previous state qualifier and is hoping to come back strong this weekend after a below-average preformance in last year's preliminary trials. The Panthers finished with 17 points as a team coming in 15th place. The 4x400 relay team came up short of qualififying for state with a sixth place finish along with Christian Hildebrandt in the triple jump with his seventh place finish.

Park Hill and Park Hill South Girls Track
With Park Hill and Park Hill South's 15th and 13th place finishes at sectionals, there weren't many events where the Trojans and Panthers finished towards the top half of their events. Park Hill was just short of qualifying two events for the state meet with the fifth place finish of Stephanie Atkinson in the pole vault and the 4x800 relay team of Brooke Bischof, Maddie Bischof, Katie Ebbrecht, and Joanna Grauberger. The Panthers were able to squeeze one athlete into the state meet this weekend when sophomore Audrey Rothers's 5'1" jump in the high jump qualified her a trip to Jefferson City to compete as the Panthers' sole girls representative.