Northland Lacrosse – a club sports’ team made up of athletes from multiple different high schools including Park Hill, Park Hill South and Platte County – huddle up during a matchup with Lee’s Summit.
Northland Lacrosse – a club sports’ team made up of athletes from multiple different high schools in the area – has been growing with a surplus of Park Hill and Park Hill South players.
Out of the 40 players for the Spartans, 14 are from Park Hill and seven are from Park Hill South with one who attends Platte County. Hunter Krenek played college lacrosse at Rockhurst University and has taken over as head coach this season.
“Lacrosse as a sport is not huge out here in Kansas City like it is in some areas around the country, so they really just try and draw enough to build programs,” Krenek said. “There’s a few to the south with like the Blue Valley elite schools and then you’ve got the private schools typically have their own teams and own programs.”
Sophomore defender Nikolaus Schneider is one of seven Northland Lacrosse players who attend Park Hill South.
Northland plays in the KCLA, which is a league primarily played in the Kansas City area. The Spartans practice at Park Hill High School from 5-7 p.m. on weekdays, having to wait for the Trojans sports teams who have priority of facilities to wrap up their practices.
“We kind of allow different schools to fall into one program and I know Northland is probably the biggest one out of that just because it seems like the player pool is not necessarily big enough to split into maybe an east or west, it’s kind of north of the river. There’s a ton of different counties that are represented by the team,” Krenek said.
The season starts in late February with a JV and a varsity team. In the KCLA, eight teams make the postseason but the seedings haven’t quite been locked in stone yet.
Park Hill senior Ty Schrek has played well enough for the club lacrosse team to earn a college offer to play at Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina.
“We’re established on where we’ll be; we’ll be around the fifth seed, so we’ll make the playoffs. There’s a decent amount of disparity in the skill around the city so from first place to eighth place there’s quite a difference in talent. We’re kind of in that area in the seeding where we could surprise some people and make a deep push into the playoffs and possibly championship,” Krenek said.
The Spartans have played 12 games so far this year – with one more to go – having won eight of them, including five of the last seven. Northland has a mixture of experienced and inexperienced players, some who have played for years and others who have never played before joining the team.
Freshman defender Dane Post is the only Platte County player on the Spartans.
“We have quite a few first-year players, whether they’re freshmen or even seniors trying out the sport, so it’s always kind of encouraging for anyone who wants to even give it a shot to come out and try it out. I think we’re around like 40 to 45 in the program, which would be kind of considered healthy, to field the roster of a varsity and JV team,” Krenek said.
Northland has 11 seniors on this year’s squad with nine of them being from Park Hill. Joshua Hurshman and Evan Wujek are juniors with the other three Park Hill athletes being underclassmen.
“I couldn’t really tell you what school each kid goes to except that I know our senior class is Park Hill heavy. This is such an impressive senior class in terms of leadership and setting expectations where it’s always difficult to come in as a new coach,” Krenek said.
Park Hill South has five juniors – Matt Barber, Palmer Fosnough, Cameron Moore, Brady O’Hara and Ethan Rodewald – while Nikolaus Schneider is a sophomore and Braden Tipton is a freshman. Dane Post is the sole Platte County athlete, being a freshman defender.
Park Hill South junior Ethan Rodewald (#5) high fives Park Hill junior Evan Wujek on April 23.
Impressively enough, Park Hill senior Ty Schreck has taken his talents from the club team and gained the attention from a Division-I school. The midfielder has committed to play lacrosse at Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina.
“For someone from Kansas City to go Division-I, everyone’s supportive and proud and Ty deserves it; he’s one of my favorite players I’ve ever coached, and I’ve known him for less than a season. He’s a mature leader and athlete so I was excited to see that he was able to commit to Queens,” Krenek said.
Schreck has led the Spartans in assists with 17 and second on the team in goals with 19, only trailing Wujek who has scored 23 goals. The Spartans’ final game of the regular season will be against Saint Thomas Aquinas on May 5, then they will head into the postseason and look to make some noise.