Park Hill’s Allison Gonier had two hits in the Lady Trojan’s’ 9-8 loss to Raymore-Peculiar on Sept. 25.
KANSAS CITY – In the last nine days, the Park Hill softball team (8-12) took on four teams with winning records and fell short in each one of those contests.
Park Hill was on its longest winning streak of the fall ahead of the 5-4 loss to Liberty (12-10) on Sept. 18 as the Lady Trojans won their last three games of the Park Hill South Tournament. Liberty went up early, scoring two runs in the second and third innings but that lead started to slip away.
In the top of the fourth inning, Lauren Oakley and Lauren Emmendorfer had RBI singles to cut the deficit to 4-2. The Lady Blue Jays responded with three hits – two of which were doubles – to add one run in the bottom of the fourth inning.
In the ensuing inning, Taylor Landeck tripled and Allison Gonier singled to put Park Hill in scoring position. Landeck scored and Gonier stole second base on a wild pitch, then Brynlee Johnson had a sacrifice fly to make the score 5-4.
Kylee Page reached on an error in the sixth inning and Gonier singled with two outs in the seventh inning, but both times Park Hill left a runner on and failed to tie the game. The Lady Trojans lost and were out hit 10 to six, while also having four errors.
Next up for Park Hill was a tough Lee’s Summit West squad (12-7) who erupted for 11 hits in a 12-1 triumph on Sept. 19. The Lady Trojans had four errors for the second straight contest.
Park Hill and St. Joseph’s Central (10-6) were in a defensive battle on Sept. 21. The Lady Indians struck first with one run in the top of the first inning before an RBI single by Gonier tied the contest in the bottom of the second inning.
Central went up 2-1 in the top of the fifth inning and eventually won by that score. Park Hill had four hits on the day, two by Johnson and one by Gonier and Oakley.
Most recently, Park Hill took on red-hot Raymore-Peculiar (21-1) and nearly upset the state-ranked team on Sept. 25. In the first inning, the Lady Trojans had three hits – a double by Johnson and singles by Page and Brooklyn Bertoncino – and took advantage of three walks to go up 3-0.
Raymore-Peculiar had back-to-back homers and tied the game in the bottom of the first inning, but Oakley had an RBI single to put Park Hill back ahead in the ensuing inning. The Lady Panthers tied the game again, but the Lady Trojans scored runs in the third straight inning and led 6-4.
Raymore-Peculiar scored three runs in the fourth inning and had a 2-run home run in the sixth inning to go ahead 9-6. Park Hill opened the seventh inning with back-to-back singles by Cooper Powell and Landeck.
Johnson batted Powell in with a single and Oakley walked with two outs to put two runners on base. Page stepped up to the plate and made contact with the ball but grounded out to the third baseman and the Lady Trojans fell shy of the comeback and lost 9-8.
Park Hill erupted for 10 hits on the night, led by Gonier and Powell with two apiece. The Lady Trojans will look to enter the back end of their schedule with five games – not including the Kewpie Classic Tournament – starting with a road game with Staley (10-12) on Sept. 28.