White Bear Lake rallied from a 26-21 halftime deficit to defeat visiting Park 50-41 in Suburban East Conference girls basketball Friday.

The Bears outscored Park 29-15 in the second half to earn the win.

Sydnee Nelson scored 13, Tori Henderson 12 and Bryleigh Dana 9 to lead the Wolfpack offense.

Park fell to 0-3 in the conference and on the season. White Bear Lake improved to 2-0 in the SEC and 5-1 overall.

The Wolfpack hosts Cretin- Derham Hall (1-1, 2-3) on Friday.

Forest Lake 40, Park 38 After three lackluster offensive quarters to open the season, Park finally found its offense Tuesday night. Park outscored visiting Forest Lake 28-17 in the second half, rallying from a 23-10 halftime deficit only to fall just short at the final buzzer, losing to the visiting Rangers Tuesday evening 40-38.

Park had a chance to tie the game in the final seconds, but Forest Lake stripped the ball away and held on for the victory.

“Much better second half of the second half,” said Park head coach Stephanie Tolkinen. “We settled into our offense a little bit and just started trusting it a little better. We got better movement, better player movement, caught them off guard, made a couple of big shots. We started running transition and hitting threes in transition. We hit a couple of threes in transition and it kind of gets the energy going a little bit and then, I think, just as the game went on we made stops on defense.

“Our whole deal was trying to contain 33 (Cassidy Pitzl, who finished with 13 points) as much as possible and let other people shoot the ball,” Tolkinen said. “And then rebound. We did a good job with that in the second half. We did a much better job with that. Let them be impatient instead of us being impatient and then I felt the kids just had a sense of OK we can do this.

“We just started making some better plays on offense and making stops on defense and that got us in the game,” Tolkinen continued. “They didn’t run a lot. We didn’t let them transition so they didn’t get transition points which was nice., which we gave up a lot against Burnsville. That was a better part of our game as well. And we handled the pressure better in the second half.”

The Wolfpack got off to a very slow start offensively and trailed most of the game by double digits. Forest Lake jumped out to a 10-2 lead in the first half and led 23-10 at the break.

But the shots finally started going in for the Wolfpack in the second half and they closed to 27-20 with 12:59 to play and then 32-28 with 6:48 left. Sydnee Nelson’s three made it a 34-31 game with five minutes left and Edie Walton’s three tied the game at 35-all.

The game was tied again at 36-all and then 38-all with 45 seconds left. Forest Lake went up 40-38 in the final minute. Park coach Stephanie Tolkinen called a time out with 4.7 seconds left to draw up a play for a last-second shot, but the Wolfpack never got off the attempt.

Sydnee Nelson and Graycie Smith led Park with seven points each, Tenley Nelson had six and Edie Walton five. But Park’s offensive struggles were illustrated by the fact that starters Tori Henderson, Emma Ambroz and Bryleigh Dana combined for just seven points.

Park’s Sydnee Nelson drives the lane in the second half against Forest Lake. Photo by John Molene