The Park Hill boys’ wrestling team came up short in a Kansas City Suburban Conference Gold Division dual matchup against Liberty North when the Trojans were defeated 48-28 at home on Jan. 4.
Park Hill’s Savion Paden, above, battled off against Liberty’s North’s Jacob Stockard in the 220-weight class on Jan. 4.
Despite losing the first four matches by pins and eventually trailing 39-6, Park Hill fought back with four wins in a row to narrow the deficit 39-28 with two matches remaining. The Trojans’ comeback bid fell short when freshman Mason Turner was pinned in the 160-weight class and senior Luis Camacho lost 5-1 to Nathan Sola in the 170-weight class.
“We have to get better,” Park Hill head coach Jacob Beck said. “Where we’re strong, we’re strong and where we struggle, we struggle. We need to get better at some spots and get back to basics and be tough in some situations.”
Park Hill’s slow start was imminent in the result of the match as the Trojans’ first points were in the 106-weight class with a forfeit to Erik Egstad. From that point on, the Eagles won three straight matches to increase their lead to 33 points.
“We need to focus on the room and start working on basic techniques: moving our hands and staying in our stances. There’s not a lot of magic in this sport – it’s rather I’m going to do something to you or you’re going to do something to me, and it seems like sometimes we are letting people do things to us,” Beck said.
Cael Keck got Park Hill rolling in the 132-weight class when the senior pinned Lucas Titus at 1:14 to start a four-match winning streak by the Trojans. Kody Ketchum (138), Kal Miller (145) and Ethan Vande Ven (152) all bested their Liberty North opponents, but it wasn’t enough to lead Park Hill to a victory.
“We are looking to peak, and we have a couple tough weeks ahead of us. It’s a grind, there’s not a whole lot of time to do big things; it is mostly focusing on little things that we can do to improve on,” Beck said.