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The Park girls hockey team put out another gritty performance on the evening of Friday, February 26th, this time against Roseville. The Raiders came to town at 6-4 and Cottage Grove at 0-8, so the Wolfpack were looking to score their first victory of the season.

“People say you’re young, all the time, but of six kids that played varsity last year, we’ve got five that played a little bit, and we have three that never played. We have two new goalies, and they’re working hard. you know that I think after about the third game we started really playing really working, and you just got to get over that hump. So, a lot of times I think we’re creating their offense. We’re making a bad pass or a bad change, create an offense for the other team and when you don’t score a lot of goals you can’t do that,” Head Coach Bay Shock reflected.

Early in the first, with 14:35 remaining, Park jumped out to a 1-0 lead when Carissa Oberdin connected with Shelby Hansen who then fed Shauna Miller for the goal. Roseville scored six minutes later with 8:47 left to tie the game. 28 seconds later Roseville put another one behind Wolfpack keeper Isabella Wegele to end the period up 2-1.

22 seconds into the second period, Roseville extended their lead 3-1, but Miller and the Wolfpack were not about to rollover and just quit. 2:18 into the period, Nina Fragola and Emily Waldo assisted Miller on her second goal of the night, bringing Park back within one. Roseville kept the pressure on and scored one more with less than five minutes left in the second to make it 4-2 as the teams headed into the locker room.

Coach Shock had a simple message for his girls heading into the third period.

“We gotta play in their end. When we played in their end and forecheck, we get the puck to the net, backup. It’s a whole different game.”

The girls responded and played more in the Roseville end which kept the score from changing until halfway through the third when Roseville found the white lace one more time to make it 5-2 Raiders. The wolfpack responded, this time it was Fragola and Hansen feeding Miller for the goal and the hat trick with 2;10 remaining in the game, it was 5-3.

Park pulled their goalie after that and the Wolfpack did their best to hold Roseville in their end of the rink. Unfortunately, the Raiders managed to get an empty net goal to end the game 6-3, handing Cottage Grove their ninth loss of the season.

For senior night, Shock spoke briefly on the seniors he has in the program.

“We have eight seniors, seven of them play on the varsity one’s a junior varsity kid, our three goals came from our senior Shawna Miller, so she got the hat trick. Oh, she’s got nine goals on the year. So she’s probably got at least 75% of our goals.”

After a loss is rarely time for celebration, but on senior night, parents and athletes were enjoy one simple thing. Hockey. They were happy to be out on the ice, taking pictures of the seniors and the family members that came to cheer them on. Pictures with their friends, even ones from the Roseville team. It was a celebration long overdue that these folks needed to have.

“I have played since I was in eighth grade, and so it’s been a long time I feel like I’ve experienced a lot. You know, I’ve kind of seen it all and with that I try and teach all the young or underclassmen in the program. What the culture is like here and you know its, our team is very supportive and very family like and, you know, that’s just been my goal. Ever since I was an eighth grader to keep that kind of tradition going through our whole program,” the Wolfpack’s star of the night, Shauna Miller explained.

What about her hat trick?

“Our team needs a little kick in the butt sometimes and you know it’s. I don’t know it just it’s nice to try and get our team going, and you know we’re young and talented and I’m excited to see what the next couple years will be like, there’s a lot of younger girls and hopefully I inspire them and motivate them to keep going and keep working hard every time they hit the ice,” explained Miller.

“Park traditionally, they’ve had these goalies that have been around. You know, so, and then when you just break down sometimes and leave your goalie out to dry. You know it’s tough. They’ve been splitting games, both been playing really well. But you know it’s tough to go in the locker room after another loss and say boy you played really well and we played pretty good you know just a couple mistakes and boom, it’s in the back of the net. We’ll come out on top one of these times, surprise somebody,” Coach Shock said about the obstacles of this season with the young team and his young goalies.

Shots on goal for Cottage Grove – 16, Roseville – 33. Park had four penalties for eight minutes and Roseville had two for four. All goals were scored at even strength.

The ladies take on White Bear Lake on Tuesday, Stillwater on Thursday, both of those games are at 5:15. Then they travel to the Nation Sports Center in Blaine on Saturday to take on Mounds View at 3:00 and finally back home against East Ridged the following Tuesday. Puck drop for that is scheduled at 7:30 p.m.