As Park City High School head lacrosse coach Ryan Sheaffer looked over his roster Friday afternoon; he felt more like an E.R. doctor than a team administrator.
His team was playing long-time nemesis Judge Memorial but was faced with big ailments among his starting players like a fractured vertabrae, a bite from a hobo spider and mononucleosis, just to name few.
“We got some drama,” Sheaffer said
Not an ideal situation against one of the biggest rivals. The Miners lost 11-7.
“I don’t think we even hurt Judge,” said Dillon Dutkanych, who scored three of Park City’s goals. “We had lackluster play.”
Dutkanych was joined in scoring by Mark West, who also had three goals, Gabe Campbell with two goals and Matt Mersereau with a handful of assists, but it wasn’t enough.
The Miners’ were without Max Vought, who suffered a serious back injury at the beginning of the game that will sideline him for three weeks. Without him, Park City was without its fastest player.
“This game took a toll on us,” said Dutkanych. “It was hard not to have the team we wanted.”
The Miners hung with Judge for most of the game but began to falter in the fourth quarter. Dutkanych said that if the Miners had been able to play a little longer, they might have been able to beat the Bulldogs, but Sheaffer begged to differ. With the thin Park City roster, most of the team was wiped out by the early part of the fourth quarter. Judge took advantage, controlling possessions and scoring a number of unanswered goals.
“We were very tired at the end of the game,” Sheaffer said. “We were making silly mistakes. Give credit to Judge, they bit us in the fourth quarter.”
Judge won most of the ground balls in the fourth and, when the Miners did have the ball in hand, they seemed to throw it away.
“We just didn’t have fresh legs,” Sheaffer said.
The Miners were also hurt by the fact that they had played three games in a week, which may have also affected their energy level late in the game.
This is the third year in a row that that the boys have lost to Judge, one of the best teams in the league for a long time, Sheaffer said he really expected a battle this year against his normally fast and talented team.
“I had to let it go. It’s not the end of the world. I thought they left everything on the field,” he said. “Hopefully we get to see them again in the playoffs. They are definitely a rival and we love beating them.”
In the meantime, the Miners will just have to settle for playing other challenging teams, like Viewmont this Wednesday, which boasts the best goalie in the state. Although most of the Viewmont team is better matched to the skill level of Park City, Shaffer said that the goalie is a game-changer.
“He’s capable of winning games for them,” Sheaffer said.
The Miners will host Viewmont at 4:30 p.m. at Dozier Field.