The Park Hill South girls basketball team returned for the 47th annual North Kansas City Tournament, hoping to defend the crown they won last year.
While they got the tournament off to a promising start with a 59-37 win against Grandview on Feb. 2, their title defense concluded with a 58-48 defeat to North Kansas City on Feb. 4.
South bounced back well, putting in a good overall performance to take third in the tournament after defeating Liberty 69-63 on Feb. 6.
They controlled most of the matchup, but a shaky third quarter gave Liberty a window to climb back into the game. After surrendering the lead in the fourth quarter, South got rolling again to close out the tournament with a win.
For Park Hill South head coach Josh Dorr, it was a positive performance after his team’s hopes of winning the tournament were ended two days prior. While the semifinal loss was disappointing for his team, losing to the eventual tournament champions, his team bounced back well.
“That statement from how you respond,” Park Hill South head coach Josh Dorr said. “We came out really well. We kind of let up when we got that big lead, made some mistakes to let them get back into the game and build the momentum, but we finally got it back from them; it just took a long time.”
The Panthers jumped out to a 9-1 lead early in the contest before Liberty got back within a score. A pair of triples from sophomore Maggie Welsch and freshman Norah Farber quickly put the Panthers back in command, followed by a 3-pointer from Sarah Listrom before Addison Bjorn completed an old-fashioned 3-point play to make it 23-10 after the first quarter.
Mack Adams is among the Park Hill South freshman who have taken on larger roles throughout the season.
Liberty showed some positive offensive signs, but still had no answer defensively as South extended its lead to 15 points as freshman Mack Adams joined seniors Bjorn and Paige Farber on the scoresheet. After going down by 16 with another triple from Welsch, Liberty showed some life by cutting the deficit down to 10 before halftime.
The Blue Jays caught fire in the third period, not just tying the game, but taking their first lead of the game to make it 46-45 off a steal. Desperate to find an answer, Park Hill South turned to its freshman sharpshooter, Norah Farber. After the Panthers coughed up the lead, Farber stepped forward to restore South’s advantage going to the fourth.
Freshman guard Norah Farber scored all 15 points she scored against Liberty from her five 3-pointers.
“We see her shoot well in practice a lot of times where she’ll get hot and she can’t miss,” Dorr said of Paige Farber, who reached double-digits for the first time in her young Panther career.
“It’s like she’s throwing it in the ocean, basically. At some point, we’ve joked about some time we’ll see that in a game, where she will get hot, and I think that’s what we saw tonight.”
Farber knocked down two more from deep to begin the fourth quarter, giving South a 54-48 advantage with all 15 of he rpoints coming from beyond the arc. Liberty still wasn’t done, however, as they went on a 7-0 run to take a 55-54 lead.
This time, Bjorn supplied the Panthers’ response as she knocked down back-to-back triples before Paige Farber converted an old-fashioned 3-point play. Another bucket for Bjorn extended South’s 11-0 run, suddenly stretching their lead back out to double-digits as they led 65-55 inside the last two minutes.
It was a hole too deep for Liberty to climb out of with so little time left this time, as the Panthers pieced things back together to come away with the third-place plaque.
Bjorn and Paige Farber — who both logged double-doubles in the first two games of the tournament for their work scoring and rebounding — were named to the all-tournament team for their efforts throughout the week.