The Park City volleyball team’s first serve of the season against Skyridge is set for 6 p.m. on Thursday, and there’s plenty of excitement in the Miners’ gym.
For one, they’re looking forward to a more “normal” season this year, one without, say, having to leave a tournament at Herriman in the middle of their first match because of a positive coronavirus test. The Miners will also have the privilege of having fans back in full force on their home court, where they’ve lost just three matches in three seasons.
It also helps that they like their chances this year.
“I’m super excited, we’re all putting in extra work … everyone’s coming in early, staying late, working as hard as they can, so I’m super excited,” senior Cassie Prior said. “I feel like we have a great chance and that we’re going to give it our all.”
Despite their optimism, the Miners have big shoes to fill after last year’s graduating class featured six seniors who went on to play college volleyball, four of whom are playing in Division I.
“But the nice thing is we have a nice pipeline of good athletes in the program, so each year we expect our team to be a little better than they were last year,” coach Matt Carlson said. “Especially with the senior leadership that we have and especially the legacy that they leave behind to make the class behind them a little better. The kids we have coming in this year are hardworking, fantastic, and we’re excited.”
Park City over the years hasn’t rebuilt itself — it reloads. Since 2016, Carlson’s second season, the Miners have won at least 19 matches every year, including a state championship in 2017. Park City ended last year with a devastating 3-1 loss to Mountain View in the state semifinals, and no one on the team is thinking that they can’t improve on that.
“(Class) 5A is super deep and tough, you have a lot of good teams out there,” Carlson said. “I feel like we’ll be able to compete with anybody and so hopefully we just peak at the right time, number one, and number two, we just keep getting better and better every day so that we can play our best.”
Leading the way for Park City will be Prior and her twin sister, Mattie. They are the top two returners in kills for the Miners, combining for over 320 in 2020. The Priors, who are committed to play volleyball together at Concordia University Irvine, pitch in defensively as well, with Mattie finishing last year second on the team in total blocks (53).
“We’re two out of the three people that ever played varsity here in the gym, so it’s fun to let them know this is how hard we work, this is what we expect,” Mattie said. “We’re going to have so much fun along the way, but it’s going to be a journey to get there, so they’re all super excited to keep working hard and fight for state.”
Thursday’s opening match against Skyridge will give Park City an idea right away of how they stack up against quality competition. The two teams are familiar with playing each other early in the season, as this is the fifth time since 2016 that they’ll play each other in August. The Falcons, who play in Class 6A, are 1-0 on the season as of Monday, and Carlson believes that they’ll be a good test for his new-look squad.
“They’re heavier on the experience side, you have two seniors that got full-ride scholarships (in Division I), they have two juniors that are going to be (Division I) kids,” he said. “They’re a stacked team this year, so it’ll be fun to see how we compare.”