Park City High School’s mountain biking team made the trek down to St. George for the Utah High School Cycling League state championships on Oct. 22 and Oct. 23 and returned home with a fifth-place finish after two long days of competition.
Miners coach Chris Best estimated that it was the first time that they have finished in the top five in five years. Park City finished 200 points behind first-place Corner Canyon. The Miners had six riders finish in the top 10 in their respective races.
“It was a good finish for us,” Best said. “We thought we had a chance at top three if everything went perfect, and two weeks of rain leading up to the state championships was anything but perfect. So considering the cards we got dealt, the kids did pretty good.”
Sophomore Abigail Pruyn was Park City’s highest scorer with her third-place finish in the varsity girls race. Pruyn finished with a time of one hour, 15 minutes and 28.5 seconds.
“It’s kind of the race we’ve been looking for all year out of her,” Best said. “If you see Abby smiling before a race, look out, because she’s going to tear your legs off. And that’s exactly what happened.”
Talise Larsh came in 19th in the varsity girls race, and freshman Kaya Patterson finished in seventh place out of 142 in the JV A girls race after a “pretty awesome performance.”
Trace Wallin led Park City in the varsity boys race with 38th-place finish. Wallin started the 135-person race in 88th but worked his way up to 24th after just one lap. He fell back after that, but his performance amazed Best.
“I don’t know where that came from,” Best said. “How he moved up 50 places, I have no idea. That was a pretty spectacular performance on his part. That, in my mind, was pretty inspiring to see.”
Park City’s JV A boys had another strong performance at states. Four Miners finished in the top 25 out of nearly 200 racers in the race. Turner Underhill led the way with a ninth-place result, while Derek Santoro, Hale Nickell and Barrett Petty came in 12th, 21st and 25th, respectively.
“Our JV A’s are a real strong group,” Best said. “At one point, it kind of looked like we had three in the top 10, but I think the weather kind of put them off their game. All of our riders were super strong on the first lap and just lost a little bit of fitness on that second lap, but still a super strong performance on their part.”
Other standouts included Lucas Fassio coming from 20 seconds behind in the last half-mile to take first place in the Freshman B boys race, Wynter Probert finishing in third in the JV B girls race and Erich Jaques taking sixth in the JV B boys race.
All in all, it was a successful year for the Miners, who won their region championship. Best liked his team’s culture all year long, and that starts with seniors like Jessica Sutherland, Summer McGuire, Mira Terry, Ben Yaeger and Charlie Maulding.
“We’re going to miss these kids,” Best said. “They just brought this culture of sportsmanship, compassion, just a whole lot of fun. And it was infectious. The whole team embraced it, and it really kind of started spreading through the whole region, it was pretty cool.”
The good news is that the Miners will have plenty of talent moving forward. Best likes what he’s seen from the team’s younger riders and said that there’s plenty of talent coming into the high school program. It doesn’t seem like the Miners will have to wait five years for another top-five finish.