 Last season the Park Rabbits football team went winless 0 and 9. This year a new coaching staff and a new attitude has already shown results winning the first two games and earning the number nine spot in the latest state polls. No one expected the Panthers to be this good. In fact every coach in the section picked them to finish dead last. We remind our kids of that every single day so yes whenever we come out to practice here we have a little bit of a chip on our shoulder that staff and players included. And we're just like all right yeah we'll go and show you guys uh yeah so that chip on our shoulder has definitely helped us to the start we had this year. The new coaching staff has re-energized the team and brought new life to games workouts and practices. They're just all hype and it's really bringing the team up uh morale practices are better. I think we all kind of embraced it and we're just they brought a lot of energy the first practice and we're like oh okay so this is what we're doing. Early summer workouts both improve the team's strength and unity during the off season. And that's really carried us that momentum from the hard work over the summers carried us right to this point. The team's offense has already scored more points than they had last year and the defense hasn't allowed a point all season. Eleven guys to the ball that's what we've been getting preached at so gain tackle everyone to the ball as long as we all get to the ball they're not going to go anywhere. While two wins is good there's a lot more work to be done left this season to restore the roar. Last year we were down a lot because finished off 0-9 season but this year we're looking on hyping up even on the bad plays uh just getting ready to work get back out there do what we need to do. We're going to prove a lot of people wrong this year I mean we already have we've already surpassed a lot of expectations I'm expecting uh packed stands just more people surprised. On Friday it'll be a battle of unbeatens as East Grand Forks comes to town to take on the Panthers under the lights. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland news please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.