Moungey Leads Park High Championship Dreams
One of two Park High logos
It's a funny high school football season this year, as the WIAA decided to break up the conference alignments that formerly dotted the Wisconsin athletic landscape. They'll still retain the divisional levels, but no longer will we see here in southeast Wisconsin the Racine/Kenosha clashes, or, more importantly for those of us here in Racine, the annual Park/Horlick rivalry game.
But then, such a confusion of curiosity is only natural in a year where there's a Park High quarterback with a lot of buzz to him.
Tim Moungey, a senior, is the Panthers' signal-caller and an unlikely key player at a school long noted for its punishing tailbacks and great linemen (
Brent Moss and
Johnny Clay, just to name the NFL pedigree backs,
Kevin Barry an NFL offensive lineman of recent vintage).
Indeed, not since the greatest Park wide receiver in school history,
J.C. Dawkins, has there been this much acclaim about a part of the Panthers' passing game.*
Moungey, who plays LOLB on Park's defense, is focused on getting the Panthers to their first state title since 2005 and their third overall (Moss and Dawkins' 1988 squad was the first). As for college, his top three choices are currently believed to be Florida State, Vanderbilt, and UNLV.
The Panthers had their first game of the season yesterday and routed Shorewood 31-0 at Horlick Field. Moungey earned Player of the Game, showing off skills with his hands and his feet on offense. He completed 8 of 15 passes for 125 yards and a TD with 0 interceptions and ran 6 times for 33 yards and another touchdown.
Two plays in particular stood out, the first a beautiful 14 yard TD pass to WR
Wayne Harvey on 3rd and 2 on the first play of the second quarter to give the Panthers a 10-0 lead on the Greyhounds, who just moved up from Division 2 to Division 1 this season and looked clearly overmatched against the far bigger school. The second was a 25 yard run on 3rd and 7 with 3:02 left in the third, as Moungey caught Shorewood's defense unawares and rumbled the Panthers to the red zone, whereupon they scored via a run.
Reports after the game said that Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, and, in the biggest shocker of all, Big 10 school Minnesota called to express interest in the Park senior, both as a QB and an OLB.
"It was great to start the season on such a strong note," a smiling Moungey said. "Now we just have to keep it going and focus on winning that state championship."
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* - You might also be interested in knowing that Dawkins is the school record holder in the 60 and 110 Meter High Hurdles and the 60 Intermediate Hurdles. He just missed winning the state title his senior year by .05 seconds. Park has a strong track tradition as well, especially recently, winning state titles in 1974, 1997, 1998, and 2000 for the boys and 1978 for the girls.