High school basketball ended for two Park seniors Wednesday night at Hastings. But with everyone else on the roster eligible to return next season, the future for Park girls basketball looks …
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High school basketball ended for two Park seniors Wednesday night at Hastings. But with everyone else on the roster eligible to return next season, the future for Park girls basketball looks promising.
Fifth-seeded Park was competitive against fourth-seeded Hastings until close to the end but dropped a 58-42 decision to the host Raiders in a Section 3AAAA quarterfinal matchup.
Hastings (16-11) advanced to a Saturday game against top-seeded Eastview (23-3).
Park ends the season at 10-17.
The Wolfpack were close for a half and trailed just 31-26 at the break. Hastings then outscored Park 27-16 in the second half.
Park was still within striking distance at 49-40 with 4:35 to play but Hastings outscored the Wolfpack 9-2 over the game’s final four minutes.
“I was proud of their effort,” said Park head coach Stephanie Tolkinen. “Hastings made a few more shots than us. We missed some shots, had some turnovers. The effort was there. The kids played hard, and we just didn’t come up with some makes when we needed to and didn’t come up with some stops a few times when we needed to. Hastings is a good team.
“All-in-all through the season I think we’ve improved,” Tolkinen added. “And we played with Hailey (Kieffer) this one, she’s 10, 15 points depending on the situation. There’s points right there that wasn’t there tonight. Not making excuses but we’ve got three kids who are fighting through some major colds and so. I’m just really proud of our kids. We’ve got to 10 wins. I told you at the beginning of the season if we were double digit wins, I’d be thrilled. And we did make that. We had a big win over Stillwater earlier this year. We split a couple of conference games. We’ve got a lot of kids who are just learning how to play high school basketball.”
Senior guard Tenley Nelson bowed out in style, leading Park with 23 points. Junior guard Graycie Smith scored 9 and sophomore guard/forward Olivia Czarnota had 8 points. But Malaya Ramiez scored two and those were Park’s only scorers Wednesday.
In addition to Kieffer’s absence, several of Park’s players were under the weather Wednesday, said head coach Stephanie Tolkinen.
Nelson and Kieffer were the two Park seniors on this year’s team. Everyone else can return including Smith (11.0 ppg), Czarnota (6.9 ppg), freshman Mesa Jameson (11.9 ppg), sophomore Tea Alvarenga (4.9 ppg) and freshman Malaya Ramirez (2.1 ppg).
Asked what she’s liked the returners to do before next season, Tolkinen said:
“I’d like them to go out for another sport, for track or be in another sport this spring. I’d like them to get in the weight room. I’d like them to get stronger because we’re not very physically strong right now. And part of that’s to the youth but part of it is that a lot of these kids don’t get in the weight room as much as they need to to build their athleticism and their strength. So, I’d like them to get in the weight room and then if they’re not doing another sport, get in the gym in the mornings or after school and then this summer and get their hand on a basketball a few times a week and just keep getting better at their skills. If they can use this game and this season as some incentive and motivation to get better for next year, I think we’re going to come back and we can be pretty good next year.”
