Park advances in section baseball tourney

Posted 6/8/22

Park took care of business Monday in a pretty much flawless 6-0 win over Lakeville North to move within a game of a repeat trip to the state tournament. The Wolfpack (17-6) will play the winner of …

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Park advances in section baseball tourney

Posted

Park took care of business Monday in a pretty much flawless 6-0 win over Lakeville North to move within a game of a repeat trip to the state tournament.

The Wolfpack (17-6) will play the winner of Tuesday’s game between Rosemount (17-7) and Lakeville North (15-8). That game will be held Wednesday, June 8, at Alimagnet Park in Burnsville starting at 4 p.m. If Park loses the first game Wednesday a second game will immediately follow. Rosemount edged Eastview 7-6 in eight innings Monday to stay alive in the tournament.

Park pitcher Brady Drkula threw a 2-hit shutout, striking out five while walking two in the Section 3AAAA baseball semifinal Monday.

“My sliders were giving swing and misses, it was light stuff, not a lot of pop-ups,” said Drkula. “They didn’t hit the ball hard all day. From the first pitch we were ahead the while game. They were on their heels, and you could just drive through it.

“This game is important,” Drkula added. “It was one of our best games of the season. Now we have a good spot in the section finals so hopefully the first game will be pretty good and finish it.”

Drkula set the side down in order in the first, third, fourth, sixth and seventh innings. He allowed just five batters to reach base and Park’s defense took care of the rest.

“We played pretty well, that was fun,” said Park head coach Dave Darr. “All along we’ve always felt we have this talent to do that, and Brady has been I think our best pitcher pretty much all year. I know last time out against Apple Valley he just didn’t throw well and that happens, but he came back and threw as well as he’s thrown, which is great. He threw well against East Ridge, he was in the section championship game, he threw well at Mounds View who is one game away from a section championship.

“He’s thrown some big games for us. He’s come through and we figured that was going to happen,” Darr continued. “They’re high school kids so they’re going to have a bad game every now and then so that was fun to watch Brady do that.”

Lakeville North never seriously threatened to score, and in fact never had a runner advance past second, after Park executed a force out at second, a fielder’s choice out at second in the fifth and a game-ending 5-4-3 double play. The Wolfpack played errorless baseball.

Park’s hitters, meanwhile, kept adding a run here and a run there on nine hits to gradually build to the final margin.

The Wolfpack scored one run in the second, added another in the fourth and then two more in both the fifth and sixth innings.

Park’s first run came when seniors Micah Runion and Noah Janski hit back-to-back singles to open the bottom of the second inning, with Runion scoring on an error by the Lakeville North pitcher Jackson Renz.

Janski led off the bottom of the fourth with a double and came in to score to make it a 2-0 game on a fielder’s choice by Blake Johnson.

Park went up 4-0 in the bottom of the fifth inning on a walk to Drkula, a bunt single by Johnson, a run-scoring error by Lakeville North and a second single by Runion.

The Wolfpack then added two more runs in the sixth, combining a leadoff walk to Drkula, a bunt single by Johnson, another Lakeville North error and a Smoot single for a 6-0 advantage. And that was more than enough.

“I think we hit the ball well, our defense made plays and obviously Brady shoved today, only two hits,” said Runion who went 2-for-4 with one RBI and scored two runs. “We hit the ball well, too.

“I’d say this was one of our best games,” Runion continued. “No errors, it was a clean game, we hit the ball well. Not too many popups. We kept the ball on the ground and made them make some plays.”

The win was Park’s seventh straight, while the Wolfpack snapped a seven-game winning streak by the Panthers. Park is 14-2 in its last 16 outings.

Park 3, Eagan 1

Brady Drkula hit a 3-run homer and Jackson Tessman pitched Park to its sixth straight win with a 3-1 victory over visiting Eagan Wednesday, June 1, in a Section 3AAAA semifinal contest.

In the other section semifinal contest, eighth-seeded Lakeville North (15-7) knocked off top-seeded and No. 7 Rosemount in a 3-2 triumph, thus advancing to face the Wolfpack in the section championship bracket.

On Wednesday, Park (16-6) scored all the runs it needed in a big second inning after the Eagan Wildcats (13-9) put one run on the scoreboard in the first inning to open the game.

Park’s Micah Runion and Noah Janski led off the bottom of the second with backto- back singles. One batter later Drkula sent a pitch over the fence to score all three runs.

Tessman went the distance on the mound for the Wolfpack, allowing six hits, one earned run in seven innings. He struck out six and walked three. Tessman faced just five batters over the minimum the last four innings of the game, striking out five batters in the process.


Park’s Micah Runion beats the throw home to score in the bottom of the second inning.Photo by John Molene