At 2-9 on the season, the Wolfpack boys would be entering the section 4AA tournament as the eighth seed. That put them in a spot to travel to the number one seeded East Ridge Raptors on Wednesday, October 14th. It is certainly understandable to go into that meeting with the thought process that there is a possibility Park could be eliminated from the tournament. The boys felt otherwise.

We spoke with Head Coach Andrew Bourgoine via email after the game, “Yeah it was a pretty special night for the boys and the program. To start off, the wind was insane on Wednesday night. Probably 25 mph all night and at times even closer to 35 mph. We started with the wind first half and the first five minutes of the game was ridiculous. Charlie Gutzman scored the first minute of the game. Then about two minutes later East Ridge scored to make it 1-1. Then Charlie Gutzman scored again one minute later to make it 2-1,” he recapped.

“After the first 5 minutes with a ton of action, it settled down and both teams were battling the wind.” Burgoine added. He thought the wind topped out at 35 mph, but in actuality, the gusts were in excess of 50 mph. That can wreak havoc on moving the ball, and your body. Soccer is tiring already with all the running, now add fighting 50 mph wind gusts and colder weather to the mix, the boys had to be exhausted after the match.

“As a team everyone played defense so well tonight and Jakob Leonard was a stud in net. Our backline played pretty flawless as well,” Burgoine said when talking about the defense.

“The team the last week and a half has really been playing like a team and trusting each other more and that’s why I think we are starting to play better and show our true potential that I saw that we had all year. I think we can still improve on areas like defending set pieces because we are still struggling with that,” Burgoine continued.

The Wolfpack season lives on with the 2-1 upset of the Raptors, and now seems to be their moment. They will hit the road to play White Bear Lake on the 20th at 5:00 p.m. The last time they played White Bear Lake, Park won 1-0, but keep in mind, WBL beat Hastings on this same night, in Hastings, so both teams are coming into the next contest confident and playing well. It should be a good game if you can be one of the 125 to get a ticket. Good Luck boys!