Park City High School’s girls basketball team finished the season with just one win, but it was a step forward for the program.
The Miners entered their meeting with East on Feb. 7 looking for their first win of the season against a Leopards squad that had more than its fair share of struggles as well.
They went into East’s gym and came away with a 58-37 win over the Leopards, snapping a prolonged losing streak that dated back to Dec. 3, 2021. The Miners also won their first region game as a part of Region 6.
“I think that was probably the biggest win in the program’s history in a long time, probably since they beat Spanish Fork in the COVID year,” Park City coach David Winkworth said.
“Parents were celebrating as almost like we won a championship, the girls were really excited,” he added. “It was like a championship moment for them, that was like their championship game, it felt like at times.”
Park City ended the season with a 1-19 record and finished last in Class 5A in RPI. But avoiding the ignominy of a winless season while generating some momentum for next year has Winkworth feeling optimistic about the future. Park City had some close calls, like an overtime loss to Tooele, a 10-point loss to South Summit, a 12-point defeat against Stansbury and a 13-point loss to Murray, but actually getting into the win column instills some confidence moving forward.
“If we would have gone defeated with no wins, we look back and we’re like, ‘Yeah, we probably lost that game to Tooele. That was our fault,'” Winkworth said. “But getting that win over East, we look back on the season now like, ‘Man, we were right there with South Summit. We probably should have beaten South Summit now if we played the way we did against East.’”
Park City will have to replace eight seniors from this year’s team, though, including senior Ava Kimche. Winkworth said that she’s one of the best players he’s ever coached.
“This season, she had 25 three-pointers in a season, which was tied for fifth all-time in Park City’s history,” he said. “That hasn’t happened since 2015 for someone to hit 25 threes or more.”
The senior class as a whole was valuable for the Miners. It would have been easy to check out with a new coach their senior year for a program that has only won a few games in recent years, but that wasn’t the case.
“The conversations we had with our seniors throughout the year and what kind of program they’ve been part of in the past, we definitely have changed it into a really good culture environment for them,” Winkworth said. “They understood it was a tough few years for them as seniors and they haven’t won many games and they wanted to make this season enjoyable.”
But Winkworth is also optimistic about developing the younger players in the program. He estimated that about 20 different players played at the varsity level this year.
“Losing a player like (Kimche) is going to be hard to recover from, but the young talent we have coming up – we’re losing a lot of seniors this year, a total of eight we had on our roster – but we’ve developed a lot of really good, young talent moving forward,” Winkworth said.
Among them are junior Leah Yaeger, who also served as a captain this year, and fellow junior Salem Hull.
“(Yaeger) ended up scoring 68 points this season and hitting some three-point shots this year for us… she’s more of a passer and she really set up a lot of plays for our offense,” Winkworth said. “(Hull) came in, got some points for us at the varsity level. But when she played JV, big minutes, really great teammate passing the ball and getting some big shots up there for her teammates as well.”
With Park City moving back down to Class 4A next season, Winkworth likes that fit for the Miners. With it will come a new region that Winkworth thinks they’ll be more competitive in.
“We’re excited moving to 4A next year,” he said. “I think 4A is going to be a great change for Park City. It’s going to be really competitive for us. We’re going to see Tooele twice, who we got to play once this year and we were competitive. We get to see Hillcrest twice. Hillcrest had one win this year like we did. They’re a young program like we are. We’ve got Stansbury coming through. We will see Murray again next year, who we’ve competed … against as well in region.”