Hot bats tame Wildcats

Baseball ends regular season with a win against Chisago Lakes

Senior Tait Myers starts his swing May 23. Park beat Chisago Lakes with a final score 8-3.

Ari Lissauer

Senior Tait Myers starts his swing May 23. Park beat Chisago Lakes with a final score 8-3.

Oliver Smith and Tobias Khabie

With two home runs in the game for Park, the team took down the Chisago Lakes Wildcats May 23 with a final score of 8-3. Senior captain Kristofer Hokenson hit his third home run of the season and said the home run fired him up.

“I felt pretty good, I bat flipped and the umpire got mad at me. I was excited though,” Hokenson said.

Senior Ben Farley hit the game’s other home run and said although the team hit well, lowering the number of errors as the team looks forward to the postseason is necessary for success.

“Our approaches at the plate are better and we’re putting a lot more balls in play,” Farley said. “We got to work on hustling 100% of the time. We got to clean up our errors on the field.”

In preparation for Sections, assistant coach Tom Spaeth said the team also needs to cut down on the number of walks.

“We gotta up our intensity and focus up a little bit more,” Spaeth said. “Our pitching has got to get sharper. We walked too many guys tonight.”

Hokenson said team morale improves when they hit well, making the team’s goals simple.

“We’re just looser and happier as a team when we’re getting hits together. That’s our main focus right now, just not striking out and getting more hits,” Hokenson said.

Spaeth said to get ready for Sections, the team needs to give maximum effort every time it steps on the field.

“You have to take every game one at a time. Just come to the ballpark ready to play and give it your best,” Spaeth said.

The team’s first section game is May 27. Time and location are to be determined.