After a difficult game, Park lost 72-60 against Chaska Jan. 18. Assistant coach Rob Griffin said he was disappointed with the turnout of the game, and said that the team is still working on playing together.

“(The game did not turn out) how we would like it,” Griffin said. “We are still taking those small steps to get into playing like a team. Definitely just gotta, gotta do better with sharing the ball, and to do better playing defense the entire game. We’ll get there at some point.”

Sophomore Micah Curtis said despite their preparations, this game showed the team there are many improvements to be made going forward. 

“We did a lot of conditioning and just getting ourselves in shape and prepared for the school we went against,” Curtis said. “Overall, I’d give us a D, it wasn’t a terrible game. It wasn’t a great game. We just got so much to work on and we’re gonna work on it.”

Griffin explained that it is hard getting the team to play together, as well as raising the program to higher standards.

“Right now, we’re still just working on ourselves, doing the stuff that we want our program to do,” Griffin said. “We’re trying to get us to look like the team we want us to be. Having so many guys that are still pretty young,we’re still working on the team game, so it’s a work-in-progress to get guys to work the way we want to.”

Sophomore Marley Curtis said that the loss was determined by the incohesive team dynamic.

“We were taking selfish shots and weren’t playing as hard as we could have,” Curtis said. “Our egos were getting in the way, and it just goes to show that’s why we lost.”

According to Griffin,  the team needs to play together as one in order for a good flow to occur.

“Just getting used to playing as a team sharing the ball, a lot of turnovers come off of guys just trying to do a little too much at the time,” Griffin said. “We’ve just learned to play together as a team, and because of it we’ll be able to save ourselves a lot of turnovers.”

Because of this back-and-forth game, Curtis said he realized that progress needs to be made to be successful in future games.

“It humbled us a little bit because we went into this game thinking it was gonna be easier than it was,” Curtis said. “For the future, we’re going to work harder from here on out.”

Park is set to face Benilde-St. Margaret’s at 7 p.m. on Jan. 20 at the St. Louis Park High School Main Gym.