In his four years with Park City High School lacrosse, senior midfielder Mark West had never lost to Copper Hills.
But on a chilly Monday afternoon at Quinn’s Junction, the Miners saw the perfect 3-0 start to their season come to a screeching halt at the hands of the Grizzlies, 13-5.
“We looked really, really flat in warmups and came out flat in the game,” West said. “Lost momentum early, went down a few goals, and everyone just lost their minds and tried to win the game themselves. Obviously, that didn’t work.”
After Copper Hills jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead after the first quarter, Park City’s high-powered offense had trouble finding the back of the net something head coach Rich Levi said gave the Grizzlies lots of confidence and left his team bewildered.
“Just pretty disappointing,” he said. “We came in looking to do a lot of things against this team and got stopped early.
“We had some opportunities to score, and when you don’t get goals that look like you should score early, then it tends to give the other team that momentum. Their goalie started feeling hot that’s exactly what happened.”
Park City was down 4-1 at halftime and any notion of a comeback was quickly extinguished when a beautiful exchange of play between a few Grizzlies players resulted in a goal in the first 30 seconds.
“I think it kind of just got us out of that whole team mode,” Levi said. “The scoreboard started to reflect a bad situation.”
Things began to snowball once the Miners’ inability to score began to affect their defense; Levi said his players tried to do it all on their own rather than trying to stick to the offensive sets.
“Guys on defense stopped trusting the offense,” he said. “It cost us.”
Goals scorers for Park City were seniors Zev Dekoff, Joe Sisk and West, sophomore Graham Clark and junior Rufus Frost.
The Miners lost 13 seniors from last year’s state-runner-up team and Levi said while the season is still young, there will be growing pains.
“I think it’s been difficult because our first three games we didn’t have this level of competition,” he said. “It’s easy when you’re winning. This was the first opportunity to see how the guys will respond to the tough situation.
“This looks like where we’ll start with them.”
Although Park City’s first home match of the season didn’t go as planned for the Miners, Levi said he is excited to see what his team is made of.
“I think they thought they were going to step on the field and really take it to this team,” he said. “It was a gut-check for sure. We really want to come out and have a good showing at home. We kind of let that opportunity get away from us.”
Next up for Park City is a game at Olympus this afternoon, a team that defeated Copper Hills earlier on in the season.
When asked if the players or coaches are more excited, Levi said, “I hope the players at this point. I think the guys will come out ready. We’ve got to get better top to bottom.”
West described the loss to Copper Hills as “A good experience. But we’re a winning team.
“I think the players are chomping at the bit right now. Everyone’s at each other’s throats right now. Hopefully, that’ll turn into some focused aggression against Olympus. Hopefully.”