Park’s tour of the best high school football teams Minnesota has to offer will continue for another week.

Having already faced No. 1 Lakeville South, No. 7 Woodbury and a Prior Lake team that probably should be in the top 10, Park drew No. 6 Shakopee in the first round of the Class 6A section playoffs.

Seventh-seeded Park (44) will travel to play second- seeded Shakopee (6-2) Friday, Oct. 29, in a game starting at 7 p.m. The Sabers have lost only to Eden Prairie (23-0) and Lakeville South (30-23) this season, and walloped a Prior Lake team 49-27 that just defeated Park 56-21.

It will be a tall order for the Wolfpack to hang with the Sabers Friday.

Park pretty quickly got an indication that Prior Lake’s 4-3 record coming into Wednesday’s game was deceptive.

Three quick touchdowns to start the first quarter will do that.

Host Prior Lake outmuscled and outquicked the visiting Wolfpack, winning 56-21 in the regular season finale.

Prior Lake came into Wednesday’s game just is 4-3 on the season. But to say that record was deceptive is an understatement. All three of the Lakers’ losses were to top-ranked teams: No. 1 Lakeville South (13-25), No. 2 Eden Prairie (17-52) and No. 6 Shakopee (27-49).

“That’s a heck of a football team over there that coach Gug (Matt Gegenheimer) has,” said Park head coach Rick Fryklund. “They’re big, they’re fast, they’re physical. They’re very well coached. They do a lot of things on each side of the ball.

“It’s tough to prepare for them in a regular week, let alone a short week. They’re just really, really good,” Fryklund continued. “And I told our kids before this week even started this is going to be your biggest test physically that we have faced so far this year – not to take anything away from Lakeville South – but how these guys attack us was a little bit different. These guys in my opinion are a top five team in the state.

Prior Lake opened the scoring on a 52-yard pass from Kyle Haas to Joey Krouse, then went up 21-0 before some fans had even settled into their seats.

Park senior quarterback Evan Bearth connected with Ot Omot on a 36-yard scoring play to cut Prior Lake’s lead to 21-7, but there really was no stopping the Lakers on this night.

Prior Lake led 28-7 after one quarter and 42-14 at the half.

Prior Lake’s offense rolled up 503 yards in offense, including 421 rushing yards.

Park tried to counter through the air, and had some success, but mostly too little and too late.

Bearth completed 12 of 21 passes for 206 yards and two touchdowns, with one interception.

Park’s top two running backs were mostly bottled up by an aggressive Prior Lake defense. Brady Perryman had seven carries for 32 yards and Blake Johnson seven carries for 26 yards. Prior Lake allowed just 49 yards rushing on the night.

“He (coach Fryklund) just said that we’ve got to flush this one away and look to win our next game, because that’s when it matters,” said Park senior Will Smoot. “They’re (the Lakers) are a good team. They came out fast, strong, and we’ve just got to find a way to capitalize.”

David Ola-Kazeem led Park receivers with three receptions for 83 yards, including a 78-yard touchdown reception in the second quarter that cut the Lakers’ lead to 42-14.

Defensively, junior linebacker Owen Rose had 10 tackles and five assists to pace Park. Alex Carr had nine tackles and nine assists.

“They’re a really good team, said senior lineman Jack Theis. “They’re well coached. They do a lot of things well. But when we came out we didn’t play how we hoped to come out. … We kind of locked it in in the second half which was late.

“We’ve just got to forget about this one and focus on what’s next,” Theis added.

Park senior quarterback Evan Bearth throws against Prior Lake in the second half. Bearth completed 12 of 21 passes for 206 yards and two touchdowns in the game. Photo by John Molene.