It somehow seemed all too par for the course Monday.

Park’s Wolfpack competed with the best of the best teams in the state in three girls sports this spring – in softball, in lacrosse and in flag football – but couldn’t quite reach the gold ring in any of the three.

The Wolfpack won their first two games impressively in the second Minnesota state flag football championships at TCO Stadium in Eagan Monday, dropping St. Cloud Tech in the opener and top-seeded Minneapolis Washburn in the quarterfinals, only to lose in excruciating fashion in the semifinals to Rogers.

Rogers pulled out a 22-21 victory in the fourth overtime of the semifinals after Park looked like it had the game won in regulation.

Park trailed 6-0 in the first half but took a 7-6 lead early in the second half on touchdown toss from senior quarterback Alayna Adamez to Maleah McMorrow and then a successful conversion. Park then took a 13-6 lead on a score by Gracie Smith with 10:41 to play. Rogers closed to 13-12 with a score of their own at 7:32.

The Wolfpack went up 20-12 on a touchdown by Marlina Patrick with 5:23 remaining and for the longest time it looked like that might be the winning margin. But Rogers scored again on a long run with just 36 seconds to play, then added a two-point conversion to send the game into overtime.

The teams battled through three overtimes with neither breaking through until it finally clicked for Rogers in the fourth extra period. Each team was given one play in the overtime in which to score and Rogers eventually found the mark.

“The game that we played all year, I thought we fought through it really hard,” said Adamez. “It’s really hard playing back-to-back-to-back games. It’s really hard to continue playing, especially in this heat. It was super humid in the beginning. A lot of us are probably dehydrated. But I think we overcame a lot of adversity this game and it was tough. The whole first quarter I couldn’t get a throw down and I own up to that for sure but our team found a way to pick me up and we started going in the second half and it led us to four overtimes and I couldn’t ask for a better group.”

“Tough way (to go out) but fun,” said Park head coach Scott Leonard. “It took four overtimes, back and forth, played every play. You could see how much it meant to both teams. That was so much fun.

“Great perseverance,” Leonard said when asked what he Wolfpack did well Monday. “It was hot out Multiple games they were down, still came back, took leads. Frist half in this one wasn’t real smooth and they jumped out in the second half and that was fun to see. … What a blast they are. Every practice was fun. They’re laughing and giggling. Final four. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

It was the second straight top four finish for the Wolfpack in the flag football finals. Last season the Wolfpack dropped a 32-0 decision to Eventual state champion Mahtomedi in the state semifinals, but this time Park was so close to playing for the title it hurt.

Park went 12-1 last season and followed that with an 11-2 season this spring.

“The season was great,’ said senior cornerback Paige Stewart. “I’m a multi-sports athlete. I can hands on say this is one of the better groups I’ve been with. We’re all multi-sports athletes and I think this is the best community I’ve played in. Just playing with these girls has been awesome.”

Rogers apparently didn’t have much left in the tank in the finals after escaping Park and dropped a 45-12 decision to second-seeded Rosemount in the title game.

Park had advanced to the semifinals by beating St. Cloud Tech 41-31 in the opener then took down top-seeded Minneapolis Washburn 45-42 in the quarterfinals.

“I thought our team did well just overall we all pushed through with the heat and all that stuff,” said Smith. “I think we all just kind of died down at some point so we all came back and fought through it.”

In other first round games, fifth-seeded Cretin-Derham Hall beat 12th seeded White Bear Lake 21-12, 13th seeded Rogers topped fourth-seeded St. Louis Park 34-18. Fifth-seeded Centennial blanked 11th seeded Waterville-Elysian-Morristown 22-0 and 10th seeded Minnetonka downed No. 7 Eden Prairie 38-6.

Rogers eliminated Cretin 38-7, Centennial edged La Crescent-Hokah 7-6, Rosemount got past Minnetonka 33-32 and Rogers escaped Park. Rosemount then reached the finals with a 20-14 win over Centennial.

SEASON NOTES: The Minnesota flag football boom is rapidly growing. In the first official season last spring, 51 schools competed. This year there were 104. Another thing of note was the state seedings didn’t mean much. Eight teams came into the finals undefeated and were seeded one through eight. Park, with one loss, was seeded ninth. But the final four teams were No. 2 Rosemount, No. 6 Centennial, No. 9 Park and No. 13 Rogers.