After making a trip to the Class 4 State Semifinals last fall, the Park Hill boys’ soccer team is a step closer to returning to the final four.
Park Hill’s Aland Hassan (#13) and Tanner Poirier (#17) celebrate after the Trojans defeated Liberty 1-0 in the Class 4 District 8 Championship on Nov. 4.
Park Hill entered the Class 4 District 8 Tournament as the No. 2 seed and took down top-seeded Liberty 1-0 in the district championship on Nov. 4. The victory over the Blue Jays gave the Trojans their third district title since 2018.
“It feels great; tonight wasn’t necessarily about playing good soccer, it was more about being gritty and grounding it out,” Park Hill head coach Josh Marchbank said. “I think we did exactly what we wanted to do, and it was very tiring - our guys are gassed - but they really put out the effort.”
While the Blue Jays controlled the tempo throughout the contest, the Trojans headed into the break with a 1-0 lead. Park Hill scored the only goal of the night in the 24th minute when a Grant Barry header found the back of the net from a corner kick by James Betz.
“We scored a bunch of those last year and this is the first goal in a set piece this year. It came at the right time,” Marchbank said.
Liberty had only been shut out once in its last 13 games ahead of the district championship as the Blue Jays scored 11 total goals in their three games prior to the Park Hill matchup. The Trojan defense stepped up in the postseason contest, not allowing the Blue Jays to get on the scoreboard.
“We were just trying to keep the ball in front of us and move to close space down. We know that they can move the ball well, so we wanted to avoid getting split across the middle,” Marchbank said.
Park Hill took on Liberty twice in the regular season as the Trojans came up short in both contests before eliminating the Blue Jays. Liberty defeated Park Hill 2-1 on Sept. 13 and 1-0 on Oct. 14.
“We slowly started to sharpen up throughout the year, making less mistakes and working hard. On paper they are probably a better team than we are individually, but as a group we have become a difficult group to play against,” Marchbank said.
The Trojans will be taking on Rockhurst (21-2) in the quarterfinals on Nov. 13 at 12 p.m. as the Hawklets will be entering the contest with 13 straight wins. Although Rockhurst hasn’t lost a game since Sept. 24, Park Hill will be looking to repeat history as the Trojans defeated the Hawklets 1-0 in the Class 4 Quarterfinals last fall.