Park City junior Kendall Hassel and coach Anthony DiCicco both thought Park City’s girls soccer team had played its best half of the season up to that point in the opening 40 minutes of its matchup against Sky View. The Miners prevented Sky View from scoring, and they created a few opportunities to find the game’s first goal as well.
The Miners ended up falling to the Bobcats 3-0 after allowing three goals in the second half, but DiCicco felt his team came away with plenty of positives and learned more about where it needs to improve.
“I thought we were fantastic in the first half,” DiCicco said. “We came with everything except the breakthrough goal. But our ability to possess, bringing in the outside backs, getting forward – I thought it’s the best half of soccer we’ve played so far against the best team we’ve played so far. So, to me, lots and lots of positives there for us to extract.”
Park City rebounded from the Sky View loss to knock off Brighton 2-0 in its first region game of the season on Monday. The Miners are 3-2 heading into Thursday’s match against Murray and have already tied last season’s win total.
Hassel played a significant role in facilitating a strong first-half performance from the Miners against Sky View. The junior midfielder helped the Miners play the ball out of their own defensive half and advance it up the field in addition to taking set pieces and adding some leadership. DiCicco heralded her performance, calling her Park City’s best player in the opening 40 minutes.
“The way we phrase it, she ran the game,” he said. “The ball could come into her, and she could play out. She’s picked out the right passes, she created some of the most dangerous chances in the first half and I thought she demonstrated a lot of leadership in helping to organize and keep everybody connected in the midfield.”
Although Park City’s team hasn’t been together for very long, and the Sky View game was the Miners’ fourth in 10 days, Hassel feels the team is starting to gel and find its groove. Just two days after the loss to Sky View, Hassel scored one of Park City’s two goals in the win over Brighton with a free kick from just inside Park City’s defensive half.
“We’ve slowly been developing a lot,” she said after Saturday’s game. “We’re getting to know each other a lot more. Our seniors are really good this year, so we’re able to develop off them. And our first couple games were a lot easier on us. We were able to come together as a team and develop. This was definitely more of a challenge for us, so I think we’ll build off it like we did the first three games.”
Allowing three unanswered goals in the second half after a solid showing to start the match was disappointing for Park City, but DiCicco felt the goals were preventable. Heading into Monday’s region opener, he liked where his team was at after four matches in a new system.
“The coaching staff has thrown a lot of new ideas at them, we’ve challenged them and they are responding to every challenge,” he said. “They’re responding and they’re growing. It doesn’t mean that it’s all comfortable or fun or easy. But overall, it’s been really positive couple of weeks for us, and we’re excited to get into the heart of our schedule.”