Park City’s boys lacrosse team faced Colorado’s Cherry Creek on Thursday at Westminster College in a clash between two of the top programs from their respective states. After an 8-0 start to the season, the Miners were going to get their first real test of the season.
But Park City lost to Cherry Creek, and it was ugly. The Bruins jumped on the Miners early and shut out Park City in the second half to run away with a 14-2 win. The Miners wanted to see how they would fare against higher-level competition – Cherry Creek was seeded second in the Colorado 5A state tournament last year before getting upset in the quarterfinals – and they know now that there’s plenty of work to do.
“We’re lucky that a team like Cherry Creek comes to Utah and shows us how lacrosse is played,” Park City coach Michael Persky said. “I think we’ve got more to work on and a lot to learn from them.”
Cherry Creek scored five unanswered goals to start the game. The Miners put themselves on the board late in the first quarter on a goal in a man-up situation from senior Riley Mulholland and an assist for senior Beckett Wolf. Cherry Creek responded with another goal after winning the ball in a wild scramble in its attacking end.
Senior Chase Beyer opened the second quarter with a Park City goal to get Park City back to a somewhat manageable 6-2 deficit. But that was all of the scoring the Miners could generate, as they were outscored 8-0 the rest of the way. Turnovers all over the field killed several Park City possessions, putting more pressure on its defense.
“I think we need to be better, just everywhere on the field,” senior Jack McHenry said. “Our clearing was just not where we need to be, our stickwork was not where we need to be. It kind of just showed where we are right now, and I think there’s a lot to improve on.”
“I don’t know if you can pinpoint it one place,” Beyer added. “I think, just as a collective group – obviously Cherry Creek is a great team – so we just have to be better everywhere on the field.”
Junior goalie AJ Silianoff came up with several key saves early on, but he and a Park City defense that had allowed fewer than three goals per game entering Thursday’s game couldn’t stop the Cherry Creek onslaught. Silianoff’s performance in goal and McHenry’s efforts on faceoffs were a couple of bright spots on an otherwise difficult day for Park City.
“If you take Jack McHenry as a bright spot at X, AJ did a pretty good job in goal, defense was OK – we put them under a lot of pressure,” Persky said. “But we’ve definitely got to work on clearing the ball and work on possessing the ball, and I think the speed and the intensity Cherry Creek brought showed us that we’re not quite where we need to be if we want to be considered a good lacrosse team.”
To McHenry, Thursday’s loss showed another area where Park City can make some changes.
“I think we’re just going to need to kind of take that and take it to heart,” he said. “In practice, we’re just going to need to play with way more intensity. That was a reflection of how we practice, and it showed that we weren’t nearly as good as we thought we were. I think that in practice we’re going to need to be way more intense on offense, on defense. Our stickwork needs to be dialed.”
Last year, Park City made a trip to Colorado, where they lost to both Valor Christian and Cherry Creek. The Miners responded by winning 12 of their last 13 games en route to a state title. Can they can have another rebound like that one?
“That’s what the next week will tell us,” Persky said. “It’s important to be resilient and it’s important to be perseverant. This was definitely a wake-up call, so we’ll see how they react. How we all react — coaches, too.”