Football loses final conference game to Chanhassen
Team prepares for sections after 37-14 loss
Junior Marshawn Dunlap tackles a player from the opposing team in the game against Chanhassen Nov. 11. Park lost with a final score of 37-14.
November 14, 2020
After a tough loss in the cold weather, junior Christian Arteaga said the team made a few fatal mistakes causing Chanhassen’s lead to grow, but he is proud of the effort his teammates put in — even at the end.
“We had a lot of self-inflicted wounds, we hurt ourselves a lot. Overall, we really showed some fight. None of our guys really gave up until the end. We all played through the whistle, we all played until that clock hit triple zero,” Arteaga said.
According to head coach Jason Foster, the snowstorm the previous night didn’t affect how they played because of the help from the community earlier that day.
“We’ve played in colder weather than this. The field had some ice chunks on it, but the guys and some family members came over and helped clean the field off, and they did a good job,” Foster said.
Senior Jordan Moore said that despite losing the game and ending the season with a record of 1-5, the team has come a long way from the start of the season, and he hopes its bonding will help at sections next week.
“At the beginning of the season, we were in a little bit of a hole, but we just kept on fighting out of it. We kept on coming together and the brotherhood and chemistry improved. That’s what we needed, the spark,” Moore said.
According to Foster, COVID-19 has had a drastic impact on this season, but the players made the most of the circumstances to form a tight-knit group.
“Numberwise, a couple guys didn’t play because of COVID, but for the most part we still had enough guys to come out and compete. But it is definitely different, dealing with COVID, than it was in past years. It was kind of tough but we weathered through it,” Foster said.
Arteaga said COVID-19 affected them the most at the start of the season when the sport was moved back to the fall after originally being postponed until the spring.
“We kind of had a slow start, but we realized what we needed to get done. It’s been super different, we only had a couple weeks going into our first game after they moved us back to the fall,” Arteaga said. “We started practicing harder and that definitely showed up in the games at the end of the season.”
With sections starting next week, Foster said he wants the team to take what it’s learned throughout the whole season and try to make it as far as possible in Sections.
“The season could’ve been better, but you can make a learning lesson out of it. We tell the guys to keep their heads up. We just have to come back next week for the first round of sections to see if we can do something then,” Foster said.
Boys’ football will have its first sections game at 5 p.m. Nov. 17 at Irondale High School against Irondale.
