Winning the Smithville Invitational has become a yearly tradition for the Park Hill boys’ soccer team (7-3) as it’s brought home the first place plaque in each of the last three seasons.
Park Hill didn’t allow a single goal in the invitational, closing it out with a 3-0 win over Staley (6-3) on September 23. The Trojans’ biggest margin of victory in the tournament was a 6-0 triumph over Harrisonville (4-5-1) on September 21.
The contest started out with rain, and although it died out before the end of the first half, the Trojans didn’t let the weather phase them. In a 27 second sequence in the sixth minute, Park Hill scored two goals to set the tone in the contest.
“We had a really good warmup and guys were buzzing so it was exciting to play in non-99-degree weather,” Park Hill head soccer coach Josh Marchbank said. “These soccer players like to play when it’s wet, the ball slides a lot on the ground a little bit quicker, so everybody had a good vibe going and the guys were really working.”
Luka Andonosvki broke loose from a bad Harrisonville pass at midfield and took it the distance, finding the back of the net. Right after that, Park Hill retook possession quickly and Daiggen Gaar took a deep shot from the left as the Wildcats had an own goal.
“We started the game really well; we were buzzing all over the place and so Harrisonville had a hard time getting out of the half because we were just frothing at the mouth. It’s fun to see that attitude across the board with everybody,” Marchbank said.
Park Hill junior Johnny Lynn (#4) fights for possession of the ball with a Harrisonville defender in the Trojans 6-0 win in their second of three games at the Smithville Invite on Sept. 21.
Sophomore goalkeeper Will Poole had a pair of huge saves in the opening half with 19:00 and 90 seconds left, and Park Hill had a 2-0 lead at the break. The Trojans added four goals in the second half – all by different players – when they had 26 shots and 16 shots on goal.
“It was nice to spread that around; we’ve had some problems at times of kind of being a bit selfish. Some of our individuals are trying to do too much sometimes, so we’ve been really emphasizing the last couple of weeks to just play simple and not be so selfish as individuals or as a team,” Marchbank said.
The Trojans wasted no time adding another goal, scoring their first goal of the second half 2:12 after halftime. Hudson Browne had two shot attempts in the box, with the first one being blocked by the Wildcat goalkeeper, but the freshman kept with the play and knocked down his second try.
With 24:48 left to play, Andonosvki scored his second goal of the day off a pass from 16. The Trojans added two more goals to the scoreboard in the final 3:21 when Aiden Romsland and Caden Duarte connected with the back of the net.
The Trojans were without one of their top offensive threats, James Betz, against the Wildcats because the senior had two yellow cards in the game before. In the opening game of the tournament, Park Hill defeated Smithville (3-2) by a score of 2-0 – with Betz and Logan Conley being the two Trojans to score – in a chippy game on September 19.
“I think we kind of got frustrated with the referee; there were a couple of questionable calls and we let that get to our heads. We talked about it a lot at the end of the game, but it’s something that we need to do better because we’re going to have close games at the end of the season and there’s going to be adversity and we didn’t do a very good job handling,” Marchbank said.
The triumph over Staley in the last game of the Smithville Invite gave the Trojans their sixth consecutive victory. Park Hill’s hot stretch ended when Lee’s Summit North (3-7) defeated the Trojans 4-0 on September 26. The Trojans will host Lee’s Summit (4-2-1) on September 29.