After a loss to Hillcrest last week during a tournament at Olympus High School, Park City coach Thomas Purcell told his team to get lunch together and talk about what they wanted to get out of the rest of the season.
“After that meal, they started watching film and sending me texts about things that they’re seeing and things we should be doing,” Purcell said. “That’s encouraging.”
Park City came back the next day and beat Tooele 73-58 to snap a six-game losing streak and usher it into region play with a win. The Miners, who are 4-7 on the season, were scheduled to play Murray at home on Tuesday before traveling to Brighton for a game on Friday.
“Every game’s a challenge, we tend to play a lot of close games in the region where it can go in either direction,” Purcell said. “I like this team in close games. … Going into region, I think it’s a challenging region. I know all of the coaches, they’re great guys. Great schools, I’m familiar with all of them. And how can you not look forward to it? It’s high school sports with rivalries. It’s a blast.”
Park City started the Olympus tournament with a heartbreaking 50-49 loss to Mountain Ridge before suffering heavy defeats against Layton Christian Academy and Hillcrest. The Miners bounced back from the first three games of the tournament to end the week with the win over Tooele.
“Playing two good games and two bad games against all good opponents, you’ve got to kind of look at that as a need to develop consistency,” Purcell said. “We’ve got to develop consistency to get better. We haven’t quite found that consistent effort. The two components that we can control, our effort and concentration, and that produces consistency. Those are the two things right now that we are struggling to control. We’re not controlling what we can control.”
Against Tooele, Park City had a few standout performances, including from senior Khai Lockwood.
“Lockwood had nine assists in our last game, I was really proud of him,” Purcell said. “I think he had nine assists and two turnovers, really proud of that. … Given the pressure that was put on Khai in the middle two games, the way he bounced back against Tooele, he only scored six points, but I think he had nine assists and two turnovers. And that’s lethal to the other team, and I want to see more of that from him.”
Senior Jacob Layman had 19 points against Tooele, and junior Duke Gordon had another 16. The Miners battled back from trailing at halftime to come away with the win.
“Duke Gordon, he got over his sickness, I think he’s giving us a consistent effort and giving us consistent results,” Purcell said. “(Layman) was nine out of 10 from the field, so he only missed one shot all game. He was shooting layups. We were getting the ball inside, we were making the right reads on pick-and-rolls. That stuff’s all really encouraging because that’s all stuff that we weren’t doing in the two games that we played poorly.”
Despite a tough start, Purcell said the goal is to be in the final eight teams in the state tournament. Purcell doesn’t think it’s an unrealistic one.
“We control our own destiny,” he said. “It takes a consistent effort and a consistent level of concentration, and those are two things that are within our own control. We control our own destiny, we control our own fate. We have great seniors, they understand that. They’ve played a lot of basketball, and we have great younger guys supporting them, and they understand that. They’re committed to their goals, they’re working really hard. They really have a chance if they want to.”