Park boys baseball faced off against Chanhassen on April 30, in a landslide 9-1 victory. This is an important win for Park, as Chanhassen has been a very challenging team in past seasons. This game was also the teacher appreciation night for the team, when teachers are invited to watch to help build community and relationships with players outside of school hours.

Senior Grant Haggerty said the importance of the teacher appreciation game is to help build more personal and longer relationships with teachers, rather than just connections in the classroom.

“It’s important to have teachers out here so we can get to know them outside of school and to build more personal relationships that will last a lifetime,” Haggerty said.

Coach Greg Meyer said the teacher appreciation game is significant to build rapport and support the important work that teachers do for students.

“It’s always great to support all the work teachers do, I’m a teacher myself, and super grateful to see a good crowd out here tonight,” Meyer said.

Senior Miles Jungroth said the teacher appreciation game is a key method for players to build a real connection with teachers and to support the broader community.

“It definitely supports our community, helps out our teachers and helps out our fan base when we get together,” Jungroth said.

Meyer said Thursday’s game was a good recovery for the team after a disappointing loss against Orono, but the team’s pitchers need to be more reliable at throwing strikes.

“This was a really good bounce-back game for us, after a tough (loss) against Orono. I would say pitchers (are) throwing more consistent strikes. We did have a lot of strikeouts today, but all in all our pitchers did a great job tonight, so I think being more efficient on the mound, throwing those strikes,” Meyer said.

Jungroth said the team’s morale is high after this win, and if they are able to keep up the tough approach to games, they will have a good ending to this season.

“If we keep this up, keep the morale and keep the aggressive approach, we’re gonna win games,” Jungroth said.

Haggerty said the team played much better this game than in previous games against Chanhassen and this win is a good confidence boost for the team.

“I would say we played really well today. They are usually a pretty difficult opponent for us, but we brought our A-game today and got a win,” Haggerty said.

Meyer said Chanhassen and other teams the team has recently played have been very challenging for Park, but the team put in a very strong effort and delivered a great win.

“Every team we have played has been really, really solid. Chanhassen, Orono, we play Hopkins tomorrow, but Chanhassen has been a very formidable opponent, a lot of talented players, but we came to play today, and we will come to play them again in a couple of weeks,” Meyer said.