Bakula, Waller propel Parkway South to Suburban West championship

The Lafayette Lancers came out blazing with hot-shooting early against Suburban West rival Parkway South on Friday night but the Lancers cooled off later and simply had no answers to stop the Patriots inside tandem of 6-5 senior Charlie Bakula and 6-7  senior Mark Waller.

Bakula and Waller combined for 40 points and that output plus another strong night from senior point guard Ryan McArthy, vaulted host South to a 70-58 Senior Night win that gave the Patriots the Suburban West Conference championship.

Parkway South (20-6, 8-0 in conference) finished the regular season undefeated in conference play and won it’s first championship in since sharing the title with Lafayette in 2007-08.”lt feels great,” Bakula said. “In the locker room the coaches were telling us what it was like before when they won the conference championship and we just wanted to repeat that.”

Bakula did his part to make that happen with 20 points on the night.12 of them came from behind the thee-point line as Bakula knocked down four 3-balls.

“The first half of the season I was kinda hot and then cooled off a little bit the second half of the season,” Bakula said. “But Thursday night’s game (against Lindbergh) I kind of got it back a little bit and after the first one I hit tonight I felt good.”

 Both teams came out firing in the first quarter as Lafayette jumped to a 13-10 lead on a Luke Kreinkamp backdoor layup. South answered with a 7-point run capped by a Bakula three-pointer to hold a 17-15 edge at the end of the quarter.

“Lafayette could not miss in that first quarter but luckily Charlie Bakula was on tonight,” Parkway South coach Mitch Stevens said.

“He really carried us that first quarter for a while and the second quarter things kinda started going our way. It was kinda our night tonight.”

Bolstered by Bakula’s outside shooting and timely floor play from McArthy and inside scoring from Waller South grew the lead to 11 points twice and held a 12-point cushion after three quarters and Lafayette saw that it was going to be a long night against a Patriots club shooting over 50 percent from the floor.

“They played (Parkway South) really well,” Lafayette coach Scott Allen.”We gave up a lot of open looks and then they knocked them down. They got us spread out and got the ball inside to Waller and we had a hard time with him too.”

Waller hammered the inside of the Lancers defense for 20 points while McArthy added 10 points while going 8 of 8 from the free-throw line.

Lafayette  (17-8, 7-1 in conference) closed to within 68-58 on a Joel Pennington three-ball in the final moments and that was close as the Lancers would come to making a late run.

Pennington led the Lancers with 17 points and Evan Scales and Kreinkamp added 11 and 10 points respectively.

Next up for the Patriots is a bye and then a Class 5, district 3 semifinal contest at home next Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.

“I think we’re coming together and playing well and we continue to get contributions from different players,” Stevens said.”We’ll enjoy this one for 24 hours and then we’ll start getting ready for districts next week.”

NOTES: Parkway South defeated Lafayette for the second time this season on Friday night. The Patriots also beat Lafayette 59-48 in the Ameritime Classic Tournament at Missouri Baptist University on Jan. 27. Parkway South is seeded number one and Lafayette is the number two seed in Class 5, District 3, which begins play Monday at Parkway South.