Fall nights tend to be chilly, but mid-October nights shouldn’t dip into the 30’s with random bits of snow during the day. That is exactly what happened when Park travelled to Hastings to play the Raiders on October 16th. It was a weird day leading up to a chilly night, but Wolfpack versus Raiders is always a fun match up regardless of the weather. Even with the lack of students in the stands, this was still a good game to watch.

Hastings was 1-0 coming off a 12-0 win over Sibley in their opening game. The Wolfpack was 0-1 after losing 28-12 to Mahtomedi in their opener. Hastings had run the ball 43 times for 186 yards last week against Sibley but did not complete a pass in nine attempts in the win. Park passed 22 times for 148 yards in their loss, completing 16 passes, but had only 69 yards rushing on 35 carries. Hastings allowed just 167 yards total to Sibley. Park allowed 284 yards to Mahtomedi. The Zephyrs ran the ball 30 times for 210 yards against the Wolfpack defense.

We spoke to Head Coach, Rick Fryklund on the bus ride home, “Everyone is still kinda settling down, it’s really kind of a week one or a scrimmage kind of a year still because we are all making mistakes on both teams with the truncated off season than we would normally have. It’s a little bit of making sure who settles down and does their job first.”

This was evident in the first quarter with the back and forth play on both sides of the ball and the score tied at zero. Neither team could seem to get things going until the second half when Park would take the lead on a #35 Austin Hakanson 27-yard reverse that was set up with the previous three plays. #44 Treyton Bammert-Mueller would tack on the extra point and the Wolfpack would have the early 7-0 lead. Hastings answered right back before the half expired on an 18-yard pass from #7 Axel Arnold into a crowd of players.

“They gained some momentum at the end of the second half. We actually had two guys covering him and he’s just so big, strong, and such a good jumper that he was able to pull the ball in between two defenders. I’m glad we don’t have to see them for the regular season again. We might get them again in the playoffs and he’ll make me have more sleepless nights,” Fryklund said with a chuckle. Arnold would connect with #11 Stephen Reifenberger on the touchdown. “The kicker is, you know it’s coming, and you still can’t stop it,” Fryklund added.

The third quarter mirrored the first with a lot of defensive plays being made by both teams, but this is where the running back by committee approach helped the Wolfpack wear down the Raiders.

“Our hogs, they gave me good blocks and I just had good holes to run though. Everything was just clicking, definitely give credit to the hogs on that one,” Running Back #28 Blake Johnson said referring to his offensive line.

Johnson spoke highly of the Raider linebacking core, “The linebackers were stepping up pretty well in the holes filling it, but thankfully we adjusted to it and we were able to get some more yards and some big plays.” That is when things broke open for Park.

“We went with a rotation of running backs in the second half. We tried to get a lot of people in there and that seemed to work in our favor.” Johnson added. It worked so well for Park that Johnson scored on a 4-yard scamper to give park the lead back with 7:51 left to play.

Park would get the ball back on a solid defensive performance, stopping the Raiders on a fourth down conversion attempt near midfield. A few plays later, Park would score, on a pass from Quarterback #10 Evan Bearth to Tight End Bammert-Mueller, only to have the score reversed on a holding penalty. After a second holding penalty pushed Park even further back, they made a few key plays and capped the drive off with a 17-yard touchdown run from #31 Amarion Washington. “It was a good play call by the coaches, and the linemen… I was just waterskiing behind my blocks and they took me to the promised land. I was untouched,” Washington said.

Washington also plays on the defensive side as a free safety and he gave kudos to the Raider receivers, in particular Reifenberger, “He’s a pretty big dude, but we just kept grinding, doing our job and we got the win.”

Senior Receiver #12 Jon Berrey discussed playing against a difficult Raider secondary. “It was a solid game. We had pretty good blocking throughout for our running backs and when we did pass, we had good separation. We didn’t drop a single pass; we were very focused. [The Raiders secondary] were very solid, they had really good coverage throughout the game. It was good to come out on top.”

Also from the bus, Captain, Linebacker and Guard, #51 Jesse Kennedy talked about the game. “The game was great, offensively in the first half it was a fight. In the second half, Hastings made a few mistakes, we were able to take advantage of that and score two touchdowns. Going up the middle worked well for us.” Defensively, Kennedy discussed how a week of practice to clean things up and better learn each role helped in the shortened season.

Bearth finished the night 4/10 for 90 yards, no touchdowns, no interceptions and -21 rushing yards on two attempts Johnson: 18 rushes, 83 yards, one TD Runion: 13 rushes, 59 yards, one TD Washington: five rushes, one TD Hakanson: one rush, 27 yards, one TD Park was five of 10 on third down attempts and had nine penalties for 103 yards, Hastings had five for 79.

Park travels to Apple Valley on Friday the 23rd to take on the Eagles at 7:00 p.m.