Not over till it’s over.”

Park co-head coach Stacy Paleen

This will go down in the books as a 4-0 Rosemount win. In reality it was much, much closer than that.

The highly favored, top-seeded and third ranked Irish found themselves in a fight they probably didn’t expect Thursday afternoon. Rosemount led just 1-0 with just over eight minutes to play in the Class 3A, Section 3 semifinal, and Park senior goalie Paige Stewart was doing heroic work in the net, stopping shot after Irish shot.

But Rosemount finally solved the puzzle and scored three goals in six minutes starting with a little more than eight minutes left to make it look like a walkover. But it was anything but.

“We played very good soccer for 50, too bad the game is 80,” said Park co-head coach Stacy Paleen. “No, I’m really proud of them. They showed up on Tuesday night. We played amazing soccer, really great soccer (against Bloomington Jefferson). They played some very, very good soccer tonight too but Rosemount’s a very good team and they just got to be a little too much.

“Too many shots,” Paleen continued. “Our goalkeeper played great tonight, she played really well. Even early on she made some key saves that kept the momentum going for us.”

Park ends the season with a 6-10-2 record, but goes out on a high note, knowing they played their best soccer of the season in their last four games, two wins including a satisfying victory over Bloomington Jefferson in the section quarterfinals and Thursday’s game against the Irish.

Park struggled most of the season to find the back of the net and that was the case again Thursday. Rosemount officially had 17 shots on goal to just 5 for the Wolfpack.

Rosemount (12-1-3) will host seventh-ranked Eagan (13-2-2) in the section finals for a trip to state.

Park loses a dozen seniors from this year’s team, most of them veteran starters including Tea Alvaranga, Lila Krumrie, Gabby Faletti, Maddie Finstad, Kylee Nickle, Ava Taschner, Abby Moua, Caroline Faust, Nadine-Faith Mbaku, Graycie Smith, Kailena Krech and Paige Stewart.

“Not over till it’s over,” said Paleen when asked what lesson she hoped the returning players will take away from this game and this season. Battle to the end, you never know what’s going to happen. Our word this year was defy so I think we defied the odds in some cases, maybe Tuesday night for sure and then tonight I think that they (Rosemount) maybe a little bit shocked at how hard and strong and well we played to start with. So next year we’ve got to keep building, there’s going to be a lot of spots available, so I hope girls are going to work hard in the off season.”

Park 4, Bloomington Jefferson 2

Fifth-seeded Park powered past fourth-seeded and host Bloomington Jefferson in a Class 3A, Section 3 quarterfinal Tuesday.

Maddie Finstad punched in two goals to lead the Wolfpack in scoring. Mallorie Young and Kendall Schumacher also scored for Park. Tea Alvarenga, Caroline Faust, Gabby Faletti and Hanna Williams each had an assist.

Paige Stewart got the goalkeeping win, with a whopping nine saves against two scores.

Park (6-9-2) led 1-0 at the half, then outscored the hosts (6-9-1) 3-2 after the break.

It was sweet revenge for the Wolfpack, who fell to Jefferson 3-2 in the season opener for both teams back on Aug. 21.