After a hard-fought battle with Waconia at its home opener, Oct. 16, Park lost 49-14. Head coach Jason Foster said that he saw many opportunities in the game that didn’t go as he hoped. 

“(The game) was tough because we made a lot of self-inflicted wounds that led to some scores, early and late,” Foster said. “Overall, the kids did battle, but it was a lot of things that we could have done better that would eliminate some of the scores they had.”

Even though the game was tough, junior quarterback Will Dvorak said the first score of the game put the team in a good position mentally. 

“The one touchdown pass I threw in the first quarter to Derek is probably one of the better plays of the game,” Dvorak said. “It was our first score game and got everyone going. It was good motivation.”

According to junior John Swindlehurst, the team struggled more in the second half of the game. 

“The first quarter was going all right, we just had some errors here and there. In the second half, we started going downhill (and) doing things that we weren’t supposed to,” Swindlehurst said.

Foster said the team’s inability to hold back Waconia on fourth downs was very detrimental to the game as a whole. 

“We gave up six fourth down plays and two of them were for touchdowns, so we (have) got to be able to get off the field on fourth down,” Foster said. 

Moving forward, Swindlehurst hopes the team can fix some of the issues they faced in the game. 

“We just have to practice and figure out what our mistakes were,” Swindlehurst said. 

According to Foster, the team needs to work more on communication in order to have more success in future games.

“(We need to) pay more attention to details. As far as assignments and alignments are concerned, to give ourselves a chance,” Foster said. “A lot of times we kinda missed the call, so that’s the communication piece that we have to work on us as coaches and players.”The next football game will be at 7 p.m. Oct. 23 at St. Louis Park High School Stadium against Robbinsdale Cooper. If you are interested in attending football games, please contact Andy Ewald.