Parkway South Patriots Looking to Cash In on Strong Senior Corps

It has been a slow but steady climb for Parkway South over the past few years. Tallying only 9 wins in 2008 and 12 in 2009, the Patriots hit their stride last season with a 17-7-3 record that included both a conference and a district title.

Now the squad is laden with seniors and dripping with experience. And – bonus – they like each other.

“It’s always a good thing to see a big group of the players eating together at lunch, cooperating with each other, things like that,” said coach Al Trost, who beings his 19^th year at Parkway South. “Last year was a fun group like that, and a lot of it came from the maturity of the kids and the leadership ability of most of them. They liked doing things together, where I’ve had teams in the past that get together to practice, but then they wouldn’t see each other after that. (Last year's team) really got along well, and I think that’s carrying over to this year, even with the seniors that we lost.”

The 2011 Patriots feature 13 seniors and just one sophomore. And while South does find itself with several holes to fill from last May’s graduation, all is definitely not lost: though Trost won’t get back his first-ever pair of 20-goal scorers, he gets one of them for two more seasons.

Junior forward Nick Jones will continue wreaking havoc on the Suburban West, as the Parkway South offense continues to find roles that feature him. Quick on and off the ball, Jones has been confidently shaking double marks at the varsity level since his freshman year, accumulating 68 points – including 53 last season – since then.

Jones will find support off a strong senior midfield including Michael Patterson, a four-year varsity and repeat all-conference player who has contributed 13 goals and 28 assists in his career. The imposing Charlie Bakula serves as a fluid two-way midfielder, and Evan Stroh adds a defensive mindset to the middle corps; both are expected to quickly fill gaps left behind from last year’s seniors.

The South defense suffered the most from graduation, but senior stopper Ben Boeding returns after a quiet-but-solid 2010 in the Patriots’ diamond defense. The nets will ultimately be guarded by senior keepers Austin Guffey and Cameron Tober; last year, Guffey posted an 11-5-1 record with a 1.35 GPG average and 4 shutouts, while Tober turned in an equally successful junior varsity season.

“We just want to see ourselves improve, regardless of how we start out and the games we have,” Trost said. “What happened last year was the ideal situation: by the time we got to the halfway point, we had won some big games and had others where we didn’t play so well. So we wanted to see ourselves improve no matter who we played against, and we ran each game as a challenge.”

South kicks off its season Tuesday, Aug. 30 at Kirkwood and will defend its three-time title at the Parkway Tournament at the end of September.