Park opened the 2022 softball season with a win but was quickly brought back down to earth in a sobering 7-3 loss to visiting Forest Lake Monday.

The Rangers more or less dominated the action Monday, taking a 2-1 lead after three innings, then stretching it to 4-1 in the fifth and 7-1 in the sixth. Forest Lake knocked Park starting pitcher Gracie Bond off the mound in the fifth inning. Park rallied for two runs in the bottom of the seventh, but it was a classic case of too little, too late.

It was a bit of an awakening after Park scored an 8-3 win over Irondale in its season opener on Friday.

“We can play a lot better; you know we played a lot better Friday,” said Park head coach Bob Loshek. “People will say its early in the year and all this other stuff, but the team has been young in the past and now that’s over. Now we’ve got to put our big girl pants on and start to play ball. We’ve got enough juniors, sophomores and juniors and senior that have played. We’ve played enough now. To get in the section championship game you’ve got that experience.

“It doesn’t take anything away from Forest Lake by any means. They’re always a very good team, great pitching team. But we can play a lot better.”

Park struggled everywhere, at the plate, on the mound and on the field. The Wolfpack had eight hits but could never string together anything until a mini-rally in the seventh. Bond wasn’t sharp on the mound and the Wolfpack didn’t help her by committing fielding errors.

“I don’t know how many errors, seven, eight errors, it was hard to watch,” said Loshek. “I didn’t think we gave it our best effort today.

“They know the game,” Loshek continued. “Just take command. We need to take more command and take charge of our game. Defense especially. But even on offense we took too many strikes. Too many first strikes, too many called third strikes and we’ve got to change that.”

Forest Lake pitcher Avery Muellner was by no means out-hittable, and Park managed eight hits off her. But they were scattered over the seven innings and Park batters struck out 10 times.

Bethany Weiss did most of the offensive damage for the Rangers, ripped both a home run and a triple and driving in six of her team’s seven runs.

Park (1-1) is scheduled to host Mounds View (0-2) Wednesday, weather permitting, then play at Stillwater (1-0) on Monday.

Park 8, Irondale 3 Junior Emma Ambroz went 3-for-4 with a home run, two singles and drove in four runs to pace Park offensively in a season-opening win at Irondale Friday.

Starting pitcher Bond was 1-for-3 with a three-run double in the sixth inning for the Wolfpack.

Bond also got the pitching win, striking out five, walked two and allowing three hits.