There was no love lost in the football revival of the Park Hill (2-4) and Park Hill South (2-4) rivalry, with the first regular season matchup in half of a decade coming down to the wire as the Trojans pulled out a 42-35 victory on Sept. 30.
Since the rival schools have been in different conferences in recent memory, the most recent matchup was the first time Park Hill and Park Hill South met in the regular season since Sept. 1, 2017. While the Panthers defeated the Trojans 35-7 to end Park Hill’s season last fall in the Class 6 District 4 Semifinals, this was a much more competitive game, but it also got chippy from time-to-time, especially towards the end of the night when it was a tight finish.
“I would like to speak about that rivalry a little bit; I think that’s something that we have to get over as a district,” Park Hill head football coach Andy Sims said. “I think we need to learn how to have rivalries respectfully, and I wasn’t happy with some of my guys there at the end of the game or even in last year’s game. It’s good for high school sports to have that rivalry when it’s done the right way – and you look at handshakes at the end, I was really proud of both teams at that – but I think we can eliminate some of the antics on the field at the end.”
The Panthers and Trojans both came out of the gate with quick scoring drives to set the tone for the night. Park Hill struck first on a four-play series when Kendrick Bell found Dayton Howard for a 62-yard score and Park Hill South responded on the ground with a seven-play drive – with every play being a run – capped off with a 7-yard rushing touchdown by Darrien Jones.
Both offenses erupted on the day, with Park Hill South setting a program record with 610 yards of total offense in a losing effort. With Panther quarterback Drew Paulakovich missing his second consecutive game with an injury, Briggs Bartosh stepped up under center and had a historical day as the senior threw for 340 yards and ran for 145 yards.
Bartosh did have some mistakes early, fumbling the ball twice on mishandled snaps in the opening quarter, which led to 14 Park Hill points. While Bartosh threw a perfect 63-yard back shoulder touchdown pass to Rogdryk Guillory with 4:55 left in the opening quarter, Bell rushed and passed for a pair of scores after the Trojan defense forced the two turnovers and the Panthers trailed 21-14 heading into the second quarter.
“It was great that that all those things our defense did helps add up to a win. Sometimes when the ball bounces in your favor that’s how you end up winning those games and we’ve been on the other side of it in our couple of our losses this year, so it’s good to be on the right side of things tonight,” Sims said.
Park Hill senior wideout Daytown Howard (#6) brings in a tough catch in the end zone in the first half of the Trojans 42-35 win over Park Hill South on Sept. 30.
The Panthers and Trojans matched a pair of touchdowns to start the second quarter – with a 4-yard rush by Bartosh and a 36-yard pass from Bell to Howard – but the Park Hill defense made some big plays down the stretch of the first half. Trojan senior Teague Wachter recovered a fumble in the Park Hill end zone when Jones fumbled at the goal line and the Trojans blocked a 41-yard field goal attempt by Mason Love.
James Noel picked the blocked field goal up and took it the distance with 28 seconds left in the half and the Trojans headed into the locker room with a 35-21 margin. The Trojans’ Achilles heel this fall has been their defense, so Park Hill made some changes and gave some offensive skill players some defensive snaps.
“All options are on the table at this point; you’re always going to have years where one side of the ball is naturally better than the other side of the ball, so what you’ve got to do is take some guys and play them both ways sometimes. That’s hard to do for four quarters for 14 games all year round, but when you’re selective in certain spots, you can get it done,” Sims said.
Park Hill struggled to add to the scoreboard in the second half as Park Hill South limited the turnovers and fought back to eventually tie the game at 35. Troy Mosby and Dylan Love both intercepted Bell in the second half, but the Panthers also had two touchdowns that were brought back due to offensive penalties.
Bartosh rushed in from the goal-line midway through the third period and then tossed his second touchdown of the night – this time for 30 yards to Kyle Dunaway – with less than two minutes left in the quarter to tie the contest. Neither offense could get much going in the fourth quarter with only one total scoring drive as there were multiple punts and turnovers.
Park Hill senior linebacker Loren White sacked Bartosh with less than three minutes left in regulation on a 4th down and the Trojans retook possession. After a pair of big catches by junior Gavin Schaag, Noel rushed in for a 6-yard touchdown with 1:38 on the clock to cap a four-play scoring drive and put Park Hill back on top, 42-35, with its first touchdown of the second half.
“Let’s call a spade a spade and give credit to Park Hill South for coming up making some plays. They came up with two key interceptions and when we stopped them late, we started to head in the right direction and scored,” Sims said.
Park Hill South drove down to near the red zone after a big catch by Mike Lane – who had six receptions for 112 yards – on 2nd and seven with 1:03 to play to put the Panthers in scoring position. Bell took a break from playing quarterback for the Trojans and subbed in on defense for one play and came down with a game-sealing interception when Bartosh threw the ball his direction with 45 seconds left.
“It was good to see some guys that haven’t been on the defensive side of the ball come in make some plays for us at the end, but maybe we’re not in the situation if we learn a lesson in week two or three. It’s always good to win, but we’ve been knocking on the door there when we had a second half lead against Blue Spring South that we let slip away and we battled back against Ray-Pec, and couldn’t close those ones out in similar scenarios,” Sims said.
Bell surpassed the 300-yard passing yard barrier for the third time this fall as the senior tossed 338 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions on completing 16 of his 26 attempts, along with a rushing touchdown. The quarterback now has 26 total touchdowns, 21 of which are through the air, in the first six games of the season.
Max Filion had five catches for 100 yards and Howard finished with two receptions – both of which were touchdowns – for 99 yards. Noel rushed seven times for 40 yards and a score, while bringing in three catches for 81 yards and a touchdown.
For Park Hill South, Bartosh’s 485 total offensive yards – not counting his 27 yards of returning kicks, which was 512 yards from scrimmage total – was the most ever by an individual, which is even more impressive since he’s not normally a quarterback. Jones had 24 rush attempts for 125 yards and a touchdown and three catches for 16 yards, while Guillory had five receptions for 135 yards and a score.
The Trojans have now won the last five regular season matchups against the Panthers dating back to 2014, while Park Hill South has been the victor in the last two postseason games against Park Hill. This was a big win for the Trojans since the Panthers are also set to be in the Class 6 District 4 Tournament when the postseason begins.
Out of eight total teams in the district, Park Hill is currently in sixth place and Park Hill South is the seventh seed with three games to go. The Panthers will take on another district opponent, Staley (4-2), and the Trojans will host Lee’s Summit (3-3) on Oct. 7.