Park girls lacrosse: Wolfpack dealt season-ending loss by Eagan/Rosemount

The Park girls lacrosse team’s season came to and end with an 11-5 loss to an Eagan/Rosemount cooperative in the opening round of the Section 3 playoffs on Monday, May 23, at Rosemount High School.

Park, the 10th seed, actually out shot seventh-seeded Eagan/Rosemount 21-16 in the game and trailed just 5-3 at the half in a game that Park co-head coach Scott Leonard said was “much closer than the score.”

“We played a very good game,” Leonard said. “We were playing on grass and weren’t used to that — we only played one game on grass all year in addition to that one. We also played about the last 20 minutes down a player, which didn’t help.”

In fact, Park (6-8) was down 8-5 with roughly four minutes to play before Eagan/Rosemount (8-6) scored three times as the Wolfpack began to take more chances in order to score.

Park junior Karisa Land led the Wolfpack’s offense in the game with two goals and junior Allie Thalhuber, senior Natalie Arcand and eighth grader Bailey Aasen each scored one goal.

Park’s defense held Eagan/Rosemount sniper Simone Haugen, the state’s leading scorer, to a season-low two goals in the game.

On the year, before falling to Eagan/Rosemount, the youthful Park team went 4-2 in its last six games with both losses being 9-7 defeats by top-15 teams — Roseville, which was 13th and Cretin-Derham Hall, which was sixth at the time.

“Watching the girls improve this year was very nice to see,” Leonard said. “We just need to continue to work in the offseason so we can get out to a good start next year.”

After topping Park, Eagan/Rosemount went on to beat No. 2 seed Lakeville North 9-8 to reach the Section 3 semifinals.

“We were hoping to make a run,” Leonard said. “It was a little bitter that it could have been us doing it instead of them.”

Though it returns the bulk of its roster, Park must now say good-bye to six seniors — Arcand, a team captain and defensive anchor Taylor Durden, along with midfielder Crysta Colmer and attackers Tanisha Morgan, Anna Bonacorda and Thea Ostby.

“Natalie didn’t have big scoring numbers, but her leadership was huge — she was like another coach on the field,” Leonard said. “Taylor was like that too, we never needed to tell her anything on the field. She knew what needed to be done and was the vocal leader in the back for us.”

However, with Park returning 21 players — including Thalhuber, who led the Wolfpack with 48 goals this year, which was 12th in the state, after scoring 52 goals as a sophomore — Leonard said he is looking forward to next spring.

“Our junior class is very big and some nice eighth and ninth graders to go along with that is pretty exciting,” Leonard said. “Hopefully we can make another run.”

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