FALL PREVIEW: Park Hill Football

For the first time since 2004, Park Hill’s 5-5 record in 2011 left the Trojans out of the Missouri state playoffs. While it was a painful experience for a program which prides itself on performing well in district play, it’s one the players are moving on from it in order to rebuild for their comeback in 2012.

“We’ve only had two non-winning seasons in 12 years,” Reynolds said. “There are no excuses for why it happened. We’ve talked to the kids about it and they understand the reasons. We keep that to our selves, but we have to improve and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

One thing Park Hill comes into the season more comfortable with is their overall depth after a 2011 season that featured a string of key injuries leaving them short-handed at critical points.

“Even though we don’t have as many names on the roster, we’re better off depth-wise than we were last year,” Reynolds said. “If we had an injury last year, we didn’t have anyone ready to play varsity. This year we feel if there is an injury, we’re going to be ok.”

Park Hill will lean on its defense early which returns the most experience. After offseason surgery senior Will Gaye will return at middle linebacker along with junior Nate Blanchard, both of which will be a big part of the Trojans’ defensive scheme as will linebackers Jake Terveer and Stefan McCarthy. Linemen Gary Wilson and Matt Gilme will play big roles both in the middle and off the edge of a defensive front that will use three and four man fronts. John Balsamo, Matt Gillman, and Carter Anchors make up what has been an enthusiastic and hard working secondary in preseason workouts.

“Defensively with a lot of returning guys, they’re really starting to improve and do things a lot better,” Reynolds said. “We’ve put in a lot more on both sides of the football than we ever have, and the kids are really picking it up.”

Offensively, the Trojans will be adjusting more to what’s usually described as a spread formation. Junior Clay Ford will be taking over the quarterback duties and run the offense from the shotgun position. With this new approach, Reynolds feels it will allow the assignments for each player to be easier to read. This will complement the experience Park Hill has in their skills players which include running backs Dondrell Hardiman (294 yards, 3 TD’s in 2011) and Stefan McCarthy (128 yard, 1 TD) as well as wide receivers Anthony Arens (106 yards receiving, 1 TD) and Lane Holmes (100 yards receiving, 1 TD).

“The good thing is we have a lot of skill guys back on offense so we’re doing a lot more shotgun and putting the ball in our skills guys’ hands,” Reynolds said. “With that, there are going to be some mistakes once in awhile, but we’ve had some success implementing it over the summer so we’ll see."

The development of a young offensive line will play a pivotal role in putting together a traditionally strong Trojan running game. They’re also athletes that could see time on the defensive side of the ball as well. Returning starter senior Gary Pickel will be joined by Jordan Lashbrook, Joe Tuimauga, and Anthony Enriquez in the trenches.

A hard working, lead-by-example group of 20 seniors will lead Park Hill into the 2012 season which starts off with two big games. The first on August 24th at Raytown South followed by hosting Lee’s Summit West on August 31st.