Top-seeded St. Thomas Academy knocked out eighth-seeded Park in the Section 3A boys’ lacrosse tournament at Mendota Heights Thursday, June 3, winning 15-5.

The Cadets (10-4) advanced to the section semifinals and a matchup with fifth-seeded Eagan on Tuesday, June 8. STA has been on a roll, winning its last three matches by double digits.

STA started quickly and led 5-1 after one period and 7-2 at the half. The Cadets outscored the Wolfpack 5-0 in the thrid to take control of the game with a 12-2 advantage.

Noah Muckle had two goals in the fourth period to lead Park offensively. Nolan Rinzel, Jake Westland and Carlos LaBrosse had one goal each.

Park ends the season with a 7-8 record.

The Wolfpack lose 11 seniors off this year’s team, including midfielder Noah Muckle (11 goals, 19 points), attacker Nolan Rinzel (17 goals, 37 points), attacker Cody Maul (17 goals, 21 points) and midfielder Connor Nelsen (9 goals, 20 points).

But leading scorer Jake Westland (28 goals, 43 points), sophomore Brenden Bloedel (13 goals, 16 points) and goalie Colton Porter (14 games played, 119 saves) return to anchor next year’s team.

Park 10, TriMAC 6 Park broke away from a 3-all halftime tie with seven goals in the second half to take a 10-6 victory Tuesday over visiting TriMAC in round one of the Section 3A boys lacrosse tournament.

The Wolfpack scored five goals to one in the decisive third period, including two goals each by sophomore midfielder Brenden Bloedel and senior midfielder Noah Muckle and one by senior midfielder Conner Nelsen.

Bloedel’s two scores in the third were sandwiched around a goal by Nelsen and turned a 3-all game into a 6-3 Park advantage, The Wolfpack never looked back after that.

Bloedel finished with five goals in the game.

“Better play in the second half, yea,” said Park head coach Greg Rinzel. “We lost our faceoff guy in the first five minutes and our goalie in the first quarter so we were playing with people who don’t normally play positions and we were a little out of sorts until we kind of got their heads screwed back on straight. They came back and showed a little bit of life on the bench, which was better.”

Cody Maul also had two goals for the Wolfpack, the first two goals of the contest as Park opened with a 2-0 advantage. Park led 3-2 after one quarter. The second quarter was almost scoreless until TriMAC scored with just eight seconds remaining in the half to knot the game at 3-all.

But Park reasserted itself in the third quarter, taking command of the game.

Colton Porter started in goal for the Wolfpack but was knocked out by an injury after the first quarter. Little-used sophomore Braden Karnitz stepped in and played well in goal for the last 36 minutes of the game.

“Our backup goalie Karnitz came in cold and basically started the second quarter not knowing he was going in at all, so mentally got pretty much dialed in and did a pretty good job,” said Rinzel. “He played well today. Defensively we played all right. As a team we just need to do better with ground balls and some of those small things to make it a little bit better.”

Park evened its season record at 7-7.

Tri-MAC – comprised of athletes from Minnehaha Academy, St. Croix Lutheran Academy, DeLaSalle, St. Agnes, St. Paul Academy and Summit School — ended its season with a 3-10 record.