In the fourth game of the season, with a match-up against Como Park Dec. 17, Park came out victorious. For junior Kiya Hegdahl, the game depended on players’ staying focused and maintaining confidence, while also supporting teammates on the court.

“Leading up to the game and during practice, we worked on our confidence and focused on us as a team. We are getting better with being diligent with everything we are doing, and that really showed in the game tonight,” Hegdahl said.

According to head coach Arsenio Richardson, Park got to see different players contributing to the game, but they did not come out as aggressively in the first half as they had hoped to.

“We played better in the second half. We played in a lot of spurts, so trying to be consistent is going to be a major focus,” Richardson said. “We made three big ones. The one in the second half catapulted the lead off, but we need to persist defensively, make open shots, and make the right play. It’s a big team effort and not just a one person show.”

According to senior Shantell Harden, the team played hard through the ups and downs of the game. Although, she said they have things to work on to make their time on the court more productive.

“I’d say our biggest takeaway is figuring out how to put together a full game. We have a lot of lapses where we’ll play good, and then we’ll slow down and start to play a little bad and then go back up,” Harden said.“ Just trying to figure out how to put together a full game will be really big for us.”

For Hegdahl, the team needs to focus on control and being in-tune with one another so that they can play better.  

“Going into the game, we were focused on controlling what we could control. Obviously, we are going to be playing better teams and, in games with teams that have a lesser intensity, such as this one, we’ve found that we need to work on ourselves,” Hegdahl said.

Towards the end of the game, teammates and spectators cheered and stood for Harden. The game marked a career high for her, with 38 points in a game and hitting her 1000 career points milestone. According to Harden, the moment was very special not only because she reached a big feat she was working towards, but because she had so many people supporting her.

“It’s a big accomplishment. Not a lot of people actually get to do it so it was really cool and just like touching like a touching moment,” Harden said. “It meant a lot that my coaches were super involved. They stopped the game so people could celebrate with me and that felt really good. It was like it was just awesome to have that happen.”

According to Richardson, a future goal for the girls would be being consistent with their plays and really working as a team to build each other up. 

“We got to get better, you got to continue to get better. Of course, we were excited that we got the win, we have to build on this and try to be more consistent and not play as sloppy,” Richardson said.

 Park’s girls’ basketball team plays next in an invitational 1:30 p.m. Dec. 28. against Eden Prairie at Park Center High School.