The obvious question heading into the 2024 girls' lacrosse season is what the Park Wolfpack can do for an encore.
Park went 13-2 last season, sharing the Suburban East Conference crown with Stillwater, both finishing with 8-1 league records. Park lost just twice last season, a 12-10 defeat at Woodbury and then a shocking 8-7 upset loss to Simley in the Section 3 semifinals.
Included in that run were wins of 15-5, 17-4, 16-3, 15-3, 15-7, 16-3, 22-0, 16-6 and 19-2 over Hastings in the Section 3 quarterfinals.
Many of the starters and top reserves off that team return, but there’s one huge loss in the lineup, senior attacker Shelby Hansen. Hansen led the team with 64 goals, 14 assists and 78 points in 15 games this season, averaging 4.2 goals a game. Hansen was a three-time all-conference and all-section player who signed to play lacrosse at Concordia University in St. Paul.
But besides Hansen, Park will be without the services of starting junior goalie Aubree Laska and junior forward Josie Leonard for about the first month of the season. Both players sustained injuries during hockey season and won’t likely see the field until sometime in May.
Park was a relatively young team last spring with just five seniors on the roster. But Park has grown into a lacrosse power, going 25-6 the last two seasons and that trend is expected to continue with this year’s Wolfpack team.
Returning for the Wolfpack will be junior attackers/midfielders Madi Brinkman (47 goals, 5 assists), Leonard (40 goals, 9 assists), Kyra Stofer (7 goals, 4 assists), senior Ava Reckinger (6 goals, 2 assists), senior defenders Tori Henderson and Sam Miller and Laska (15 games played, 13-2, a .520 save percentage and nine goals blocked.
“We still have a lot of unknowns right now,” said head coach Scott Leonard, now in his 18th season with the Wolfpack. “We do have some good players back. We lost a lot of good ones. We do have some good, young, players. Madi is going to have to do a lot up front. But we’re looking for a lot more out of Kyra Stoffer, Ava Reckinger and Maleah McMorrow. We think they can pick up the slack of losing Shelby and Josie.
“We’ve got to fill in a couple of holes on defense, a couple on attack,” Leonard continued. “We have all three of our starting midfielders back other than Josie. But Ava, Maleah and Madi will do the majority of the midfield work and we’ll mix in Sam Miller. Sam is looking really good today.”
Five of Park’s seven best defenders from a year ago return this season. “We’ll be pretty defensively solid,” said Leonard. “I’m a little more worried on the offensive end. Losing Shelby is huge and with Josie out for a while it’s going to put a lot of pressure on Madi.”
Sophomore Lauryn (Crash) Ehrenstrom will earn the start at goalie for the Wolfpack. When Laska is fit to return the two will likely share the position. “Our plan this year was to work them a little more closer to 50-50 because they’re both varsity-level goalkeepers,” said Leonard. “We’re going to definitely miss Aubree but we’re pretty confident in Crash coming in and doing the job. She plays year-round and she’s really aggressive around our crease. She’s going to go out and steal balls from opposing teams that make errant passes.”
Leonard notes that while Park probably won’t have a scoring threat such as Hansen, the Wolfpack should be more balanced this season.
As usual, the Suburban East Conference is expected to be very strong. East Ridge defeated Simley 9-8 in the section final to advance to state last season. Stillwater also made the state tournament a year ago.
“Our biggest issue overall is the strength of the conference,” said Leonard. “The conference has gotten so good right now. We have six teams that I think can all beat anybody on any given night. This is going to be one heck of a conference season.”
Park has consistently been among the top three teams in the conference for several seasons. That’s a team goal again this spring.
Park has a scrimmage against Rosemount and Wayzata Saturday, April 6, then officially opens the season at Mounds View on Wednesday, April 17. Park’s first home game is against White Bear Lake Friday, April 19, starting at 7 p.m.
One final interesting note is the Wolfpack will have four foreign exchange students from Spain on the roster this season, all of whom are new to lacrosse.
