An impassioned Park Hill South boys volleyball team showed its dominance in the inaugural rivalry matchup against Park Hill on Tuesday, April 15, at Park Hill South High School.
The Panthers had the edge almost all night, defeating the Trojans in four sets 3-1. While the Panthers didn’t completely dominate, they dominated just enough to keep Park Hill at a distance.
“It’s exciting to get a win against a quality opponent and somebody who is obviously a big rival of ours,” Park Hill South head coach Zach Coughlin said.
The opening set was tight with both teams going on short bursts, but South outlasted the Trojans to take the first set 27-25 after a long hit from Park Hill. In set two, Park Hill South built a 20-13 advantage and while Park Hill cut it down to two, they didn’t have enough to overcome the full deficit after a long serve gave Park Hill South a 25-21 win in the second frame.
The Panthers were agonizingly close to completing the sweep of their rivals, but were unable to finish it in three sets. With numerous match points for South, the Trojans rallied to come back from a 24-21 deficit in the third set to win it 26-24 after senior middle hitter Cam Jones spiked the winner to keep Park Hill alive, forcing a fourth set.
South finished the job in set four after constructing another seven-point lead. While Park Hill managed to cut into the lead slightly, the Panthers made sure to complete the job when sophomore Alex Foot applied the finishing spike to take the fourth set 25-18.
Park Hill South’s rivalry triumph was their 10th victory, as they swept North Kansas City the next night to improve to 11-5 this season.
“We are continuing to grow,” Coughlin said. “We’ve got a lot of good hitters up front that can really swing. When we are backing that up with defense, which we did a pretty good job with tonight, we’re pretty hard to beat a lot of nights.”
The Panthers’ success is no surprise to Coughlin in the program’s inaugural season. Despite being at a disadvantage with many teams playing last year, Park Hill South came in with some optimism due to the confidence in the team’s athletic ability.
“There’s still a lot of learning going on,” Coughlin said. “We’ve got guys who have played a little bit, but a lot of it is just them understanding how to play on a team and work with each other.”