Park City High School’s boys basketball team’s season came to an end on Friday night with an 81-48 loss to Highland at home.
The Miners finished with a 4-19 record and 28th in RPI out of the 34 schools in Class 5A. Only the top 24 teams qualify for the postseason.
“Oddly enough, this group never really gave up,” Park City coach Thomas Purcell said. “They really took things on themselves, they were a pretty mature group. … I think they struggled with the results in region (play), but I think they understood the results in region, and that will be really important to life going forward.”
Park City had a promising start to the season, winning three of its first four games. That stretch included a 53-52 win over Morgan on Dec. 6 when senior Matthew Hale drilled a three with no time left to improve to 3-1.
“I think the run of good play we had at the beginning of the year was fantastic,” Purcell said. “Beating Morgan again was fun. We’ve beaten them a lot since I’ve been coach, and I know historically Park City hasn’t done very well against them.”
But the bottom fell out for the Miners after that, as they lost 18 of the next 19 games. Park City scored a win over Tooele in its final non-region game before going 0-12 in region play. Region 6 was especially tough this year, with the other six teams all finishing in the top 20 in RPI. That includes Olympus (No. 1), Brighton (No. 8) and Skyline (No. 9).
But there are reasons for optimism. For one, Park City will move down to Class 4A next year, and its new region will include three current Class 5A teams that finished below the Miners in RPI. For another, Purcell sees plenty of talent among the current underclassmen.
“We have probably more potential and talent in the underclasses than we have since I’ve been there,” Purcell said. “We have a really solid junior class kind of anchored by Duke Gordon. We have a really strong sophomore class kind of anchored by Cam Wilson. We have a ton of size – Cam Wilson, Cedric Donovan. Freshmen this year, Bridger LaPine, Luke Rice, we have all of those guys in the pipeline.”
One legacy they will leave behind is being the first group to commit to making Park City basketball a year-round program. Purcell said it was his No. 1 goal when he took over as the basketball coach, but making that sacrifice wasn’t necessarily easy for the players.
“If the basketball program becomes successful, you have to look back on this group on what they did last summer, how much they played, the trip to Tahoe, ” Purcell said. “All the games in the summertime are not that fun; I still remember them myself. You go to those summer tournaments and lose 10 pounds. But when the coach says he wants to put in year-round basketball at a program, there has to be a first group, and this was that first group. I’ll never forget them for that sacrifice. They were the first ones to really go through that ringer.”
That opens up plenty of possibilities for Park City moving forward.
“That foundation is critical to Park City for having success because there’s going to have to be a core group of about 10 guys that are totally committed to what they’re doing for Park City to have a chance,” Purcell said. “And moving to where we belong in 4A helps, too.”
Their final game together might not have gone the way they had hoped, but Park City’s seniors never quit. This year’s senior class was also the first to have Purcell, who just finished his fourth year coaching the Miners, at the helm all four years of their high-school career. Purcell lauded their effort, even if the results didn’t go their way.
“I had a very hard time on senior night, just in terms of saying goodbye to them,” Purcell said. “They absolutely never quit. … That senior class, if you think about their careers, they really had every chance that they ever wanted to to quit what they were doing.”