Entering the night on a 5-game winning streak, the Park Hill South boys’ basketball team (13-7) nearly erased a 26-point deficit and brought the game within single digits against North Kansas City (14-6) before falling 81-73 on Jan. 31.
With 4.1 second left in the third quarter, the Hornets sank a pair of free throws to push the margin to 62-36. Zahir Ragsdale took the inbound pass and brought it down the floor before beating the buzzer with a shot at the left wing to close the gap to 23 points.
“We didn’t match their energy there at home,” Park Hill South head boys’ basketball coach Dan Parra said. “I think since we won five in a row, maybe we were thinking we were better than what we really are, and they came out and punched us in the mouth and we hardly ever recovered until the fourth quarter from that.”
Ragsdale made an impact early in the fourth quarter, scoring a layup in the opening seconds before Colby Kiedrowksi scored five straight and all of a sudden, the Panthers were on a 10-0 run. The Hornets scored a bucket on the other end, but Ragsdale made a triple from the left corner – which made the sophomore responsible for scoring or assisting on 11 of the last 14 Park Hill South points at the time – before a pair of buckets by Cahmai Crosby and Sam Simmons Jr. made the score 67-54 with 4:25 to play.
Crosby made a layup with right over one minute to play after getting the offensive rebound to cut the deficit to 10 points. After the Hornets made two shots from the charity stripe, Simmons knocked down a shot from behind the arc and Crosby added a layup before the buzzer, but that wasn’t enough to complete the comeback.
Park Hill South senior Cahmai Crosby became the sixth player in program history to score 1,000 points in the loss to Lee’s Summit West on Feb. 3.
“I think part of that was (North Kansas City) Coach (Ed) Fritz pulling off the dogs a little bit, so they quit scoring. We had some shots that happened to go in at the end, we just never were able to string along consecutive stops when we needed to on defense,” Parra said about the fourth quarter scoring surge.
A strong reason that North Kansas City was able to nearly lead by 30 points was its strong start, scoring the opening 14 points. Park Hill South didn’t score until Kiedrowksi converted on a layup with 2:41 left in the first quarter, which started a 10-5 Panther run.
Similar to the end of the third quarter, the Hornets scored a late bucket and Ragsdale made a shot from deep at the buzzer. North Kansas City led 19-10 at the end of the first quarter and ended the half on a 15-4 run – including scoring 10 of the final 12 points – to head into the locker room with a 41-22 advantage.
“They got the ball in the paint when they wanted to. Their guards did a great job dribble driving, getting the ball in the paint and then hitting an open shooter or they were throwing the ball into the big guy and getting what they wanted in there,” Parra said.
North Kansas City had three players score over 20 points when the trio combined 25-of-31 from the field and four-of-four from behind the arc. Avian Webb and Alex Gunnels had 22 points, while Tyler Parks ended with 21 points.
“The main reason we won games is because we played defense. Tonight, there was no indication of wanting to play defense or at least attempting to play defense and try to stop them. I think we’ve got to go back to what works for us, which is defensive rebounding,” Parra said.
Crosby had a career-high in points with 26 as he shot 10-of-18 from the field and made all six of his free throws, along with five assists and four steals. Ragsdale ended with 18 points on four-of-five shooting from downtown.
The Panthers went on to play the No. 4 team in all of class 6 – Lee’s Summit West (18-2) – in losing fashion on Feb. 3. The Titans came out on top 53-43 in a game where Crosby became the sixth player in program history to score 1,000 career points.
The senior had only scored 20 or more points four times in the first 18 games before scoring exactly 26 points in back-to-back games. Against the Titans, Crosby shot seven-of-16 from the field – including two-of-four from behind the arc – and converted on 10-of-13 from the charity stripe.
Crosby carried a large load on the night as Simmons was the only other player to make more than one basket when he ended with six points. Damon Stacker was the only Panther other than Crosby to hit a triple as Park Hill South shot a mere three-of-14 from behind the arc on the night.
The Panthers are looking to recover from the two straight losses in the final stretch of games ahead of the Class 6 District 8 Tournament. Park Hill South will host rival Park Hill (12-8) on Feb. 10.