Senior Night turned sour. If there was a game where just about everything could go wrong for the Park Wolfpack, Friday night’s battle with visiting Roseville was it.
Costly turnovers, 110 …
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Senior Night turned sour. If there was a game where just about everything could go wrong for the Park Wolfpack, Friday night’s battle with visiting Roseville was it.
Costly turnovers, 110 yards in penalties, injuries, a crucial blocked punt, missed blocks and tackles and a ground game that gained just 82 yards all doomed the Wolfpack in a frustrating 21-18 loss to the Raiders.
Park slipped to 1-2 in the Metro-Maroon division and to 1-3 on the season.
Roseville scored first, on a 1-yard touchdown in the second quarter after neither team threatened in the first. Park answered with a 21-yard scoring pass from senior quarterback Miskir Esayas to senior wide out Dominic Batts.
But Park missed the PAT and that was just the start of a bad night in the kicking game for the Wolfpack. Roseville, however, matched the Wolfpack with kicking woes as the Raiders missed three field goals.
“We have a lot of opportunities to fix a lot of things that are in our control,” said Park head coach Rick Fryklund. “So, while it is obviously very frustrating to have all those bad breaks go our way, many of those bad breaks are a result of self-inflicted where – I don’t even know how many penalties we had tonight – bit all those personal fouls are just killing us to be totally honest.
“Kudos to them for doing some unbalanced stuff that they had not shown before,” Fryklund added. “We were having a really hard time getting lined up on offense, not making reads, not making blocks. It’s a simple fix to do those things but we have not yet shown that we are consistently able to do those things, so we have to go back to the drawing board and do a lot of work on ourselves.”
Roseville went up 14-6 in the third quarter, then took a 21-6 lead early in the fourth.
Park rallied again, scoring on a pair of touchdown passes from Esayas, the first an 8-yard strike to Dominic Dean, the second a 6-yard pass to Batts with just 15 seconds left to play. The Wolfpack went for an onside kick following the last touchdown, but Roseville fell on the ball and were able to run out the clock.
It was a hard loss for the Wolfpack coaches and players to swallow.
“We simply just got to do the little things better,” said senior quarterback/defensive back Jacob Czarnota. “We’re going out there, we’re not aligning right, we’re not executing what we’re taught to do and it’s just the little things that are becoming the big things and come back to bite us.
“We’re not hanging our heads,” Czarnota added. “We’re coming back next week with our heads high like we always do. It was a rough game. We’ve just got to go back; we’ve got to learn from the mistakes and we’ve got to move on.”
Park also hurt themselves badly in penalties, getting flagged 11 times for 110 yards. Roseville almost matched that, giving up 86 yards on nine infractions.
“I feel like on third down situations, our defense really shut them down and made big plays on that,” said senior wide receiver/defensive back Anthony Giadyu. (Roseville was 5 of 12 on third downs). “And what I feel like we could fix a lot more is the penalties. All the penalties, that’s unacceptable and we need to clean that up going into next week. We always can get better. We have another opportunity to get better.”
Park outgained the Raiders 321 to 295 in total yards, but most of that was through the air. Esayas completed 24 of 38 passes for three touchdowns and 238 yards.
Roseville outgained Park on the ground, 253 to 82.
Senior Naod Tewelde led Park’s run game with 38 yards on 7 carries. Esayas ran 6 times for 18 yards.
Tewelde also caught seven passes for 42 yards. Dean had seven catches for 75 yards and a touchdown while Batts had five receptions for 59 yards and two touchdowns.
“Near the end of the game, that’s where we probably did well, we came back and we were still in the fight, but we just came up a little bit short,” said senior wide receiver turned running back Tewelde. “What we did not do well I feel like, all the unnecessary penalties we had, all the personal fouls. We’ve got to fix that. And getting more yards on the runs, blocking better, just a bunch of little things.”
Junior defensive back Zach Carr had five solo stops and four assists while defensive lineman Jesse Wright had two solos and 10 assists to lead Park defensively. Linebacker Keon Moody had five total tackles and a tackle for a loss. Kody Aikens had 10 total tackles on the night.
Roseville came into the contest with a 1-2 record, losing close contests at Woodbury (10-13) and at Eastview (6-9) before a 23-9 win over Burnsville the previous week.
Next up for the Wolfpack is a game at Hopkins Friday with a 7 p.m. kickoff. Hopkins is 2-2 on the season with losses to fifth-ranked Shakopee (35-58), to Buffalo (20-37), a one-point win over Eastview (22-21) and a 34-22 win over Burnsville Friday night. Last season in Cottage Grove, Park dominated a bad Hopkins team that went winless on the season, scoring a 49-14 victory.
Metro-Maroon standings
Division All Games
Buffalo 3-0 3-1
Roseville 2-1 2-2
Hopkins 2-1 2-2
Park 1-2 1-3
Eastview 1-2 1-3
Burnsville 0-3 0-4
Friday’s results: Roseville 21, Park 18; Buffalo 34, Eastview 7; Hopkins 34 Burnsville 22.
