Park started its five game week off strong with a 3-2 win over Hopkins May 3. As the season begins, head coach Brian Kelly said the veteran players have stepped it up this year.

“Going into this year, everyone was all worried about the fact that we lost guys, ” Kelly said. “We have a bunch of guys that have been waiting for their opportunity and they’re performing really well. Our four senior captains have really been a big difference-maker for us with their leadership skills. Seeing those guys continue stepping up and along with everybody is probably what I look forward to the most.”

According to senior captain Andrew Vela, the team’s focus was keeping the energy high.

“Their energy was low, and our goal was to bring the energy right from the get go because when we played Waconia, our energy wasn’t there and we got off to a bad start. But then once we brought that energy in we really excelled,” Vela said. “We’ve really come together these past four games. If we could just keep that going we have a very good shot to win the section this year.”

Coach Kelly also said that he’s happy the team showed up all seven innings.

“From the first pitch we showed up ready, The very first pitch of the game, Graham Sullivan, laced a single to right center. They showed right out of the gate (that) they were ready to go, which was awesome,” Kelly said. “After getting those three runs in the first inning, (it) was super nice to see our team not squander that early opportunity. That often happens in high school baseball.”

Senior captain Zach Helfmann said that they played well at the plate and on the mound.

“Hopkins is our rival, so we obviously wanted to beat them. Our expectation was to win and play with tons of energy,” Helfmann said. “Obviously Josh was pitching really well and we kept our energy throughout the game — we kept having good at-bats and just challenging their pitcher making him and his fielders work for his outs.”

Kelly also said that he was happy with the team’s performance all around.

“The biggest factor was Josh Middleton trusting his defense, not getting too fine and not walking guys. He was throwing strikes and letting our outfielders go track down flyballs, letting our infield make plays on groundballs,” Kelly said. “Ryan Moran had a handful of really good plays, Vela played well at shortstop, having that confidence that our defense was going to make plays for a pitcher was really nice to see. 

Helfmann said that they played well on defense throughout the game.

“We did a great job of cutting out errors, we didn’t have any until the last inning,” Helfman said. “They made two or three in the first inning which really led to people getting on base and eventually leading to those runs that we got which gave us plenty of momentum.”

Park’s next game is 12:00 p.m. May 6 at Dakota Park against Regis.