KANSAS CITY — Park Hill South survived the first interception returned for a touchdown by Lee’s Summit.
The second one provided a margin that the Panthers couldn’t overcome in a 45-35 loss on Thursday, Sept. 26, a game moved up a day due to the threat of bad weather.
“Lee’s Summit is a good team and you can’t give any team one defensive touchdown, much less two to be successful,” Park Hill South coach Alan Wilmes said. “The kids kept fighting and we had a shot with 2 ½ minutes left and down by three. I would take our offense over anyone there. I was surprised we didn’t score.”
The loss is the second straight in Suburban Conference Red Division play and also knocked the Panthers out of the Class 5 poll after a two-week stay.
The game ultimately turned on the first interception return by the Tigers (2-3, 2-1).
Park Hill South (2-3, 1-2) led 21-14 at halftime and got a turnover on the first possession of the third quarter when Josh Lowe fell on a fumble near midfield.
The Panthers then marched down the field despite a 10-yard loss on the first play of the drive on a bad snap. Quarterback Matt Suchanick hit Eric Avery for a first-down on third down for 13 yards and a personal foul on Lee’s Summit after a short run moved the ball to the Tigers’ 14.
CODY THORN/Citizen photo
Park Hill South quarterback Matt Suchanick looks for running room against Lee’s Summit during a game on Thursday, Sept. 26 at Preston Field.
A pass interference on the next play moved the ball to the 7, but an offsides call on the Panthers pushed it back to the 12. Facing a 1st and goal from there, Thomas Smith jumped the route on a pass toward the goal line and ran back 94 yards for a touchdown.
A flag on the play gave brief hope it was coming back, but it was waved off.
Only yards away from turning the contest back into another 14-point lead, the game was quickly tied.
“Our defense put points up tonight, that was a big deal,” Lee’s Summit coach Eric Thomas said. “That was a big turn they were getting ready to score and we take it to the house from 90 or 99. That was a big turning point right there.”
Added Wilmes, “The ball came out weird on the interception. That was a 14-point swing. We talk that we need to learn as a team how to finish games and a chance to put teams away early in the game. We are driving down the field to go up by two scores. We need to do that.”
The two teams kept on trading blows until the second interception return by the Tigers provided a double-digit lead.
After Smith’s INT return, the five of the next six drives ended with points for one of the teams.
The Panthers quickly answered aided by two first-down passes from Suchanick, the first to tight end Brock Ivy and then a 60-yard gain to Gaige Warren. That moved the ball to the 2-yard line and Joe Inzenga scored on the next play, giving the Panthers a 28-21 lead.
Less than 20 seconds later, the game was tied.
Micah Manning scored on a 70-yard touchdown run for the Tigers on the first play on the next drive, tying the game at 28.
Park Hill South went three-and-out and Lee’s Summit took the lead for the first time. The Tigers moved from their 38 to the Park Hill South 8-yard line, but failed to score on three attempts. Niseme Brewer booted a 25-yard field goal to make it 31-28 with 4:15 to play in the third quarter.
Ivy hauled in a 14-yard gain and moved the Panthers to their 40 on the second play on the next drive, but an offsides and holding call pushed the Park Hill South back to the 16.
Facing a 2nd-and-35, Suchanick’s attempt on a screen play was deflected and defensive lineman Tre Wheat. He rumbled his way for a 15-yard touchdown.
The point after attempt made it 38-28 with 3:17 to play.
The long third quarter wasn’t over yet as the Panthers marched 80 yards in less than three minutes.
Suchanick completed six passes on the drive, the last was an 11-yard touchdown pass to Nathan Sharp near the front pylon of the end zone. The touchdown brought chants of ‘Sharpie’ from the Rage Cage student section.
Park Hill South pulled with 38-35 with 18 seconds left in the third.
The Panthers had the ball twice with a chance to tie or take the lead and came up short.
After forcing a punt — Lee’s Summit only punt of the second half — the Panthers got the ball with 10 minutes to go but another drive with a holding and offsides call (the fourth such call in five drives) stalled the drive and forced a punt.
Lee’s Summit got the ball with 7 minutes to play and the chance to ice away the win ended when Lowe intercepted Darrias Pearsall’s pass in the end zone on 4th-and-17 from the Park Hill South 24-yard line.
That gave the Panthers the ball with 2:40 left and 80 yards to go.
The offense gained 18 — and then lost eight on a sack — and an incomplete pass ended the drive. The Panthers had another penalty on that drive, but Lee’s Summit turned down a holding call on fourth down and took over the ball with 1:25 left.
With 54 seconds, Manning ran in for a 21-yard touchdown to account for the final score and cap a frenzied second half.
“We shot ourselves in the foot and especially against a good team, we can’t let them hang around and we can’t make those mistakes,” Wilmes said. “We need to have a little more focus and make sure we set ourselves up in good situations.”
As high scoring as the game was, neither team scored in the first quarter and 35 points were scored in the second quarter.
Park Hill South accounted for the first 14, starting with a 16-yard touchdown pass from Suchanick to Avery 45 seconds into the second quarter.
After forcing a turnover on downs, the Panthers took over at their own 42 and marched down and scored in four plays. Sharp hauled in two catches, one for 16 and the second for 40, which moved the ball to the 4-yard line.
On the next play, Suchanick scored on a keeper to push the lead to 14-0. Two touchdowns in a little more than 4 minutes gave the Panthers their largest lead, but Lee’s Summit answered with two scores in 2:05.
Pearsall, a Missouri State commit, threw a 21-yard touchdown pass to Nate Morse on the next drive, after hitting Landen Willis for a 34-yard gain on a screen play on third-and-long from midfield.
The Panthers answered with a big play, but a penalty came back to haunt the home teams.
Suchanick hit Sharp for a 60-yard touchdown but a penalty was thrown on the quarterback throwing past the line of scrimmage.
The Panthers were forced to punt and Lee’s Summit took over at midfield and needed six players to score and tie it. Pearsall scored on a 1-yard dive, two plays after his 18-yard run came down 2 yards score of the goal line.
The Panthers used a hurry-up offense to regain the lead when they took over with 1:21 left.
Suchanick needed only 50 seconds to march Park Hill South down and score. He hit Avery for a 13-yard gain and then Sharp hauled in a 35-yard gain to move the ball to the Lee’s Summit 15 with 37 seconds left in the quarter.
On the next play, Warren hauled in a 15-yard score from Suchanick with 31 seconds left in the half.
Warren finished with 11 catches for 128 yards, while Sharp had 168 yards on 11 receptions. Suchanick passed for 377 yards (30 of 48 attempts) and three touchdowns. Pearsall tossed for 358, while the Tigers had 530 yards of total offense. Adding in Park Hill South’s tally, the two teams rolled up 1,022 yards in four quarters.
Up Next
Conference play continues for Park Hill South on Friday, Oct. 4 at HyVee Field at Liberty High School.
The Blue Jays are 2-3 overall with wins against Lee’s Summit (17-12) and Truman (33-13) and the three losses have came against teams that have been ranked in Class 6 at some point this year: Park Hill, Liberty North and most recently, Lee’s Summit North.
In this series, the Blue Jays have won five of the past six meetings, the last two by a combined 52 points. Prior to that there were close wins. Park Hill South had a 7-point win in 2016, while the first three wins by Liberty had an average margin of victory of eight points.
The Panthers might be without junior defensive back Andrew Horton who was injured and carted off the field after a hard hit on special teams. He is getting tested for a concussion.
Park Hill South also played its first game without starting defensive lineman Xavier Jackson, a senior, who tore his ACL in practice leading up to the Lee’s Summit game. Torrin Ziegler and TJ Frankland will split times in his place for the rest of the season.