Park boys basketball was not able to finish their comeback against the Chanhassen Storm Feb. 21. In a high-scoring game, the Orioles were down double digits. During their final push in the last finish, Park squeezed the lead to just one point. This wasn’t enough, though, as Park missed their game-winning three.
Head coach Arsenio Richardson said playing Chanhassen is always an offensive battle. He said when the team isn’t mentally strong enough, it’s hard to win.
“All of the games against Chanhassen are always like that, high scoring and offense,” Richardson said. “We are really not a tough enough team to be able to always pull the high-scoring games out and come up on top.”
Junior Jacob Natzel said Park played a good offensive game, being quick and scoring in the paint, but their defense late in the game didn’t cut it.
“Overall, we were decent offensively, we put up a good amount of points,” Natzel said. “We were playing well because for the most part, we were getting downhill, the twins, Micah and Marley Curtis, were scoring the ball inside a lot, and we were hitting most broken shots”.
Senior Micah Curtis said Park didn’t play aggressive enough on offense or guard the perimeter well enough, yet their tight gaps and high-pressure defense caused Chanhassen to fumble up the ball.
“The game went not so great because we allowed way too many three-point shots and we weren’t getting up and aggressive on them, ” Curtis said. “We made them turn the ball over a lot, making them have over 20 turnovers because of our tight gaps and pressure.”
Richardson said they split their series with Chanhassen yet their irregular playing has caused them to lose at home.
“We beat them over there, high scoring in that game too, but when they came over to our building they got us,” Richardson said. “Those guys hit some tough shots and we missed some shots, which is going to happen sometimes, especially when we’ve been playing so inconsistent.”
According to Natzel, the team has been conditioning and has had high-intensity practices, working on breaking other teams zone defense.
“In practice, we’ve done a ton of running, working hard and practicing our defensive zones because in sections we need to have top conditioning,” Natzel said. “We’re also trying to break zones because a lot of teams are playing zones on us and we need to stop them from working.”
Richardson said the team is looking to get a section win but needs time to keep practicing and preparing.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to get a playoff win or something like that,” Richardson said. “Right now it’s not looking good, but we still have a little bit of time left to get better and keep improving our game before sections.”
Curtis said he’s excited to play out the season and prepare for sections.
“I’m looking forward to every game, but sections especially should be fun because we’re trying to make a statement and be ready,” Curtis said.
Park boys basketball plays Bloomington Jefferson at 7 p.m Feb. 25 at Jefferson High School.
