Park Hill South head boys’ basketball coach Dan Parra surpassed 400 victories in the 73rd Annual North Kansas City Tournament when he helped lift the Panthers to winning it all.
Parra has been at Park Hill South since the 2014-15 season – after spending the previous 15 years at Sumner Academy – and officially has 401 career victories, earning the 400th in the semifinal round of the tournament. The Panthers moved to 11-5 on the season as Park Hill South currently holds an impressive 156-66 record in Parra’s tenure.
Park Hill South head boys’ basketball coach Dan Parra stands in the middle of a huddle during a timeout at the 73rd Annual North Kansas City Tournament as he earned his 400th career victory in the 67-64 semifinal win over Pembroke Hill on Jan. 20 before the Panthers became tournament champions on Jan. 21.
For the first time since 2017, the Panthers came out victorious in the tournament, doing so with a 13-point championship win over Shawnee Mission Northwest (7-4) on Jan. 21. The Panthers only held a 27-22 margin over the Cougars at the break, but that lead was extended to 40-29 ahead of the fourth quarter when Michael Good beat the third quarter buzzer with a deep shot from the right wing.
Park Hill South sat on that lead and extended it to double digits to come out on top, 60-45. Senior guard Cahmai Crosby poured out 23 points – along with grabbing four rebounds and dishing out six assists – in the championship to earn the MVP of the tournament.
Mike Collins finished with 11 points and seven rebounds and Colby Kiedrowski added nine points. Good made two of the Panthers’ four 3-pointers on the day to end with a season-high eight points.
To reach the championship game, Park Hill South took down Truman (12-6) 70-49 on Jan. 19 and snuck past Pembroke Hill (11-4) to avenge a loss earlier this season with a 67-64 win in the semifinals on Jan. 20. In the first round, there was one tie and five lead changes in the opening minutes until Mike Collins stared down a Truman defender and knocked down a trey on the right wing.
That made shot from behind the arc put Park Hill South up 8-7 and it never trailed again the rest of the way, which included an 18-13 lead after one quarter and 31-25 advantage after 16 minutes of play. Zahir Ragsdale had the best game of his Panther career to date, finishing with 21 points on eight-of-13 shooting and two triples – to give him his fourth made trey in his last four games at the time, while he had only made three in his first nine games of this season – to go with four rebounds and two steals.
The semifinal matchup with Pembroke Hill was the second time this season that these teams met in the second round of a tournament as the Raiders defeated the Panthers 72-53 in the William Jewell Classic back on Dec. 29. Pembroke Hill was in control of a majority of the contest in the North Kansas City Tournament thanks to scoring the first seven points of the night and taking a 20-9 advantage when the first quarter ended.
Park Hill South had a big second quarter when Kiedrowski and Crosby combined for nine points, but the Raiders still led at the break. The Panthers took their first lead of the night with 2:08 left in the third quarter when Brayden Parra made his first of two straight 3-pointers.
Pembroke Hill responded with a shot from deep with less than a minute left, yet the Panthers entered the fourth quarter up 49-47. The game went down to the wire and was tied at 61 with less than two minutes to play in regulation when Kiedrowski came to the rescue.
The junior point guard was coming off a 15-point outing in the first round and made some clutch plays down the stretch in the semifinals to lead Park Hill South to the championship. Kiedrowski made three trips to the charity stripe in the final 1:19 and made all six of his attempts.
Pembroke Hill brought it to within one point after knocking down a 3-pointer with 33 seconds left and then Kiedrowski put Park Hill South back up by three points with 13.7 seconds to play. The Raiders had one last chance to extend the game, but Kiedrowski defended the player who took the last shot from the right wing, the shot was no good and Park Hill South won, 67-64.
Kiedrowski had a career-high 21 points when he made all nine of his free throw attempts and shot an efficient six-of-eight from the field. Crosby finished with 12 points and nine rebounds and Damon Stacker made four of his five shots to end with 11 points.
The success of winning this championship was vital for the Panthers as they entered the 73rd Annual North Kansas City Tournament on a 3-game losing skid. Park Hill South has a single-digit number of games left in the regular season and will look to extend the winning streak with its next contest being at home against Raymore-Peculiar (4-9) on Jan. 27.