It had been decades since Spring Lake Park recorded consecutive losing seasons. Yet that’s where the Panthers found themselves at the conclusion of last fall’s season.

Four-win years in 2023 and 2024 had the players looking directly in the mirror. Many members of the current senior class played on both teams as sophomore and juniors. They had to determine where they’d gone wrong, though most seemed to know.

“This was a bunch of people, including myself, we were getting a little lazy in all of the small details,” Senior wing Tyler Wilkinson said.

That couldn’t happen again. Not if the Panthers were to fulfill what they believed to be high potential. Junior quarterback Nolan Roach said all the players, led by the seniors, got together after last fall and vowed “to do everything as well as

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