I thought we moved the ball well and we took advantage of our chances in the final third and obviously we played good defensively. It was a good team game I thought.”

Noah Haupt, senior midfielder

Park played a nearly perfect game, said head coach Andrew Bourgoine as the Wolfpack turned back visiting White Bear Lake in a 3-1 win Thursday evening.

Park got its first conference win of the season and improved to 1-4 in the Suburban East Conference and evened its season record at 5-5. The Wolfpack have already won more games this season than they did last fall (4-10).

“I told them good job,” said Bourgoine. “It’s our first conference win of the year, we started 0-4. We did play a lot of the top teams, Woodbury, East Ridge, Mounds View, so it was so it was a hard schedule. But it was good to get the first conference win and now and now we’re back to .500 again at 5-5.

“For the most part we played almost a perfect game, that’s what I told them,” Bourgoine continued. “We played about 75 of 80 minutes perfect – just the five minutes we kind of let down a little bit. We had about seven or eight chances and we scored three of them. I said 50 percent, so we got close to that, shots to goals. That’s kind of our goal every time If we get six shots, we score three. If we get eight shots, we score four.”   

Park led 1-0 at the half and built a 3-0 lead before allowing White Bear Lake (0-2-3, 0-4-4) to get on the scoreboard late in the second half. Bourgoine lamented the late letdown if it was only a brief one.

“When it’s 2-0 or 3-0 like tonight we let teams back in and they score a goal,” Bourgoine said. “Like I want to get more guys in the game and if it's 3-0 I can do that better. When it’s 3-1 any high school team can come back and White Bear Lake is a good team. I wish we wouldn’t have those little five-minute lulls of not great soccer.”

Noah Haupt, Joey Runion and Killian Krech knocked in goals for the Wolfpack. Haupt also had a pair of assists, while Ayub Mohamed had the other assist.

“I thought we moved the ball well and we took advantage of our chances in the final third and obviously we played good defensively,” said senior midfielder Haupt. “It was a good team game I thought.”

Carter Geisen and Joe Cison shared the win in goal.

“I feel like overall as a team we’ve been playing really good, holding our defense to the final minutes, being able to come out 3-1,” said Park junior midfielder Tristan Lee.

Asked what part of the game the Wolfpack needs to work on, Lee said, “I feel our transition in the game, like the goal that they scored, everybody was up, no one was back enough. So, we just need to go back to practice, work a little on that and we should be good, good for the next year.”

Host Woodbury dropped visiting Park in a 1-0 heartbreaker Tuesday, Sept. 19, at Woodbury in a Suburban East Conference matchup between the two rivals.

On Thursday, Park hosts an undefeated and fifth-ranked Stillwater team (4-0-1, 9-0-2) in a game starting at 5 p.m. Stillwater (No. 5), East Ridge (No. 6) and Woodbury (No. 10) are all ranked in the Class 3A top 10 by the Minnesota State High School Coaches Association.