It took two overtimes to do it, but Park wiped out 10 years of frustration Tuesday night with a double-overtime win over visiting sixth-ranked East Ridge. The Wolfpack finally took the mighty Raptors down with a thrilling 56- 53 triumph. “The effort, the defensive effort that those kids showed tonight just to be resilient and get stop after stop,” said Park head coach Mike Weah. “We thought we had the game won in regulation, unfortunately we didn‘t. But we talked before in pre-game that we may need an extra four minutes to try and get the win in overtime and we thought we had it won in overtime. “We preach until the final horn,” added Weah. “Until the final horn blows we keep playing, we keep playing. Personally I was never fazed by them knocking down that three. It was all right, let’s play more basketball. Our kids were confident.” Perennial basketball power East Ridge came in with 20 straight victories over Park, two apiece over the last 10 years. Last season the Raptors thrashed the Wolfpack in a pair of 38-point victories, winning 76-38 and 96-58. In fact most of the Park-East Ridge games in the last decade have been lopsided victories by the Raptors, East Ridge winning by an average of 26 points. East Ridge came into the year having won or shared three of the last four Suburban East conference championships and probably expecting to play a typical Park team.

But this year’s Park crew wasn’t about to let that happen again.

Both teams came up with clutch plays in the epic battle. East Ridge’s Alex Mattes drained a 3-point field goal at the buzzer to send the game into second overtime.

Park took a 54-53 lead with 15 seconds to play in the second overtime, rebounded a missed East Ridge shot and senior guard Jayden Lane corralled the rebound and raced up court. East Ridge’s Mattes grabbed Lane as he raced up the court and sent him to the free-throw line.

Lane calmly drained both free throws to give Park a three-point lead at 56-53 and that was the ball game.

“It’s a lot about team, not just “I” game,” said Lane. “It’s just pass the ball around, try to find the open man, try to find the big man (Pharrel Payne). He’s probably the best big man in the conference, hands down. Find him it’s kind of game over.”

Lane and junior forward Payne were the offensive stars of the game for Park with 16 and 19 points, respectively. But it was Park’s ferocious defense which really carried the Wolfpack to victory Tuesday.

“I’ve got to talk about the effort of Jamari Walker on defense, that was huge,” said Weah. “Defense is something that we’ve bought into this year. Those kids have bought into it this year. They understand that to win games they’ve got to play great defense and they’ve been playing it game-in, game-out. I couldn’t be more proud.”

“Defense,” agreed Payne when asked the key to the game for the Wolfpack. “We got on defense. We played great defense. We held them to 53 points in double overtime. We played really good defense tonight. We’re talking on defense, closing out, we shut them down.

“It feels great to get out there and beat them,” Payne added. “We definitely worked hard for this.”

East Ridge led a tight game 24-22 at the half and the game was tied 43-all at the end of regulation.

Park trailed 39-34 with 6:37 to play, but the game turned a bit when an East Ridge player was whistled for a technical foul after protesting a foul call. Park took advantage with four straight free throws to claw back into it.

Tied at 43-all with 18 seconds left in regulation, East Ridge worked the ball down to the final second but missed on the attempt. Park’s Payne grabbed the rebound and then missed a long shot from half court at the buzzer.

Kendall Blue scored 14 points and Drew Adams had 11 for the Raptors.

East Ridge fell to 2-1 with wins over Stillwater and Cretin-Derham Hall and a loss to Park.

Park improved to 3-1 on the season. It doesn’t get any easier for the Wolfpack in their next game as they are scheduled to take on league-leading Mounds View Friday.

Park’s Pharrel Payne (21) and Jayden Lane (0) celebrate as the Wolfpack race down the court in a double-overtime win over sixth-ranked East Ridge. Photo by John Molene