Park Hill South senior quarterback Briggs Bartosh led the Panthers to their second consecutive district championship last fall.
Park Hill South had a pair of boys’ squads – soccer and football – become district runners-up last fall, with the Lady Panthers’ volleyball team being the best girls’ team.
With Liberty North having some talented boy athletes, Park Hill South fell short in the football and soccer district championships to the same team. The Lady Panthers lost to Liberty in the Class 5 District 8 Volleyball Semifinals after entering the postseason with a 5-match winning streak.
The Benny Palmer era was brief – with the head football coach since resigning after one season – but Park Hill South still made a postseason run. Coming off its best regular season in program history, 2022 wasn’t as dominant.
After being undefeated in 2021, Park Hill South started off 2-1 then lost four straight games. Briggs Bartosh stepped in as quarterback and made it tough for defenses, stuffing the stat sheet throughout the year.
Bartosh set the season average record with 11.2 yards per carry, along with breaking the Panther single-game offensive yards’ record with six touchdowns and 512 total yards. He had 2,904 total yards and 30 touchdowns on the year, leading Park Hill South to two wins in the final two weeks of the regular season to regain momentum.
Senior running back Darrien Jones led the rushing attack for the Class 6 District 4 Runners-Up.
The Panthers were the No. 7 seed in the highly competitive Class 6 District 4 Tournament, but that didn’t faze them. Avenging a pair of losses from the regular season against Staley and Park Hill, Park Hill South went to the district championship and fell to Liberty North.
In the soccer season, Park Hill South got over the 11-win hump – something it failed to do in the two years prior – and ended with a 14-7 record. As the No. 3 seed in the Class 4 District 8 Tournament, the Panthers took down Oak Park and Park Hill by scores of 2-1 before being eliminated by Liberty North, 3-1.
The Park Hill South volleyball team had some tough competition in the first year in the Silver Division of the Kansas City Suburban Conference, losing more matches than it won. Starting off 3-13, the Lady Panthers turned their season around by winning 11 of the last 16 regular season matches.
Going 5-1 in the Ozark Grand Slam Invitational late in the year, Park Hill South entered the Class 5 District 8 Tournament as the No. 4 seed and swept North Kansas City in the first round. The Lady Panthers matched up with Liberty, the No. 1 seed, in the semifinals and lost 3-0.
Lucas Smith was a junior on the boys’ soccer team that also reached the district championship.
The Panthers’ swimming team had a historical fall, splashing into the record books. Park Hill South finished as the runner-up in all of Class 2, led by Jacob Duckworth who walked away from his junior campaign with a pair of individual state titles and was awarded the MISCA Swimmer of the Year.
Duckworth set a pair of program records when earning two first-place finishes, resetting his own in the 50-yard freestyle in 20.52 seconds. The junior broke Zander Livingston’s 3-year-old record in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 56.14 seconds.
Juniors Roman Lewis and Drew Franklin joined Duckworth and senior Henry Lewis as the runner-up 200-yard freestyle relay team. Duckworth’s success was even more impressive given that it was the first time he had swum since he was in middle school.
Derek Long made it to the medal stand in two events – the 200 and 500-yard freestyles – to close out his high school career on a high note before he heads to the University of Wyoming. Junior Alex Briggs was 0.01 second shy of tying the Park Hill South record in the 100-yard butterfly when he took fourth place, along with a seventh-place finish in the 200-yard individual medley.
Madilynn Conklin was the only Park Hill South all-state cross-country runner, doing so as a freshman.
The Lady Panthers’ tennis team had some struggles at times, finishing with a losing record for the first time in over a decade. Since winning a district title every year from 2010-2019, Park Hill South won double digit matches and lost exactly four in 2020 and 2021 before having an uncharacteristic 6-11 finish in 2022.
Losing all five true road matches, Park Hill South still found a way to earn a postseason victory. The Lady Panthers took down St. Joseph’s Central 5-4 in the opening round of the Class 3 District 8 Tournament before falling to Liberty in the semifinals, 5-1.
Similarly, the softball team had an unconventional fall as the Lady Panthers ended with its least number of wins in more than a decade and a half. In the last 15 years, a 13-14 finish in 2016 was the only time Park Hill South finished below .500 until this season.
With an identical 2-6 home and away record – while winning seven of the 16 games at a neutral site – the Lady Panthers ended 2022 with an 11-21 record. Park Hill South had some offensive woes, being shut out seven times and only scored more than four runs in 13 of the 32 contests. Having to replace a loaded senior class from 2021, there were many players who gained some experience in 2022. They Lady Panthers have the potential to turn things around next season.
Park Hill South had a pair of freshman stars in cross-country, Thomas Garrett and Madilynn Conklin. Garrett took 16th place overall and was the second fastest freshman with a time of 16:35.9.
Madilynn Conklin was an all-state cross-country runner, crossing the finish line 10th overall in 19:05.9. Ella Conklin and Melania Puszczak also made it to the Class 5 State Meet and ran under 21 minutes each.
Park Hill South only had one athlete who made it to the Class 4 Girls’ Golf State Tournament, Makenna Casey. She tied for ninth place, earning all-state honors with 160 strokes, shooting an 80 on both days.