High school girls lacrosse: Park City defeats Olympus in rematch of last year’s 5A title game

In a rematch of last year’s 5A title game, Park City got the best of Olympus 14-7 in a tightly contested and physical battle between two of the top teams in the state Tuesday night.

Park City was led by Coco Crawford and Megan Magee, who had four and three goals on the night, respectively.

With both teams wanting to prove their dominance, cards were being handed out a healthy amount throughout the course of the game, something that Park City head coach Mikki Clayton would like to see less of.

“It was a great win for us. It’s always tough where there’s that many cards in the game. We want to keep the girls safe but it disrupts the flow of the game. We want to play a clean game, but it takes a lot out of the game when that happens,” said Clayton.

Despite all of the cards, penalties and stoppages that occurred, Clayton was pleased with how her team responded to the calls and disruptions.

“I think the girls were real competitive early on and when it gets that competitive it’s hard to calm down. I think once the cards started piling up, they realized that they had to play more calm,” he said. “You have to play with your feet and not with your body. Thankfully, I think they backed off and played to the rules.”

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Park City got out on the front foot from the outset, scoring the first three goals of the game in quick succession. Midway through the first quarter, however, Olympus answered with two quick goals of its own to prevent Park City from doing any further damage.

“We have a really fast team. We always try to push the tempo. I think that’s where we really excel. That’s definitely how we wanted to start off the game. Credit Olympus for coming back and thankfully our girls were able to regroup as the game went on,” said Clayton.

Park City held a somewhat comfortable 10-6 lead going into half and the defense was able to lock things down in the second half, holding Olympus to just one goal for the rest of the game, while adding four more goals of their own to pad the lead and put the game out of reach.

The strong defensive performance is something that Clayton is no doubt pleased by and hopes to see continue as the team gets ready for the state tournament.

“Our defense has been playing great all season long,” he said. “We want to be able to put the pressure on when we need to, but also lock it in on the defensive side. I think they had a good combination of that. Our goalie played absolutely lights out and had some huge stops for us.”

With just a few more weeks until the tournament, Clayton is happy with where her team is at right now, especially with all of the offensive weapons that are out there.

“I think they girls are excited and I feel like we’re in a good spot. We have a lot of young players on our team who’ve really been able to step up this year. We have a lot of different scorers, which has been really beneficial for us. If someone is getting shut down, we have lots of other girls who can score,” said Clayton.