High school girls lacrosse: Park City runs away from rival Olympus to reclaim 5A state championship

On the one hand, Olympus’ game plan for containing Park City’s top players in Thursday’s 5A state championship at Zions Bank Stadium worked.

Park City’s terrific trio of Megan Magee, Hadley Mulholland and Coco Crawford came into the final with 132 combined goals, but the Titans held them to just four total goals.

The Miners still won 16-6 though, as their depth was just too good on the day, and really all season. Sophia Mondschein stepped up and scored a career-high four goals with the extra space afforded her, while Natalia Szwajkun added three goals, one shy of her career high.

“One of our sophomores, Sophia Mondschein, had an unbelievable game. I think Olympus was probably locking on some of our seniors and juniors that were big players, and we just have so many weapons in our arsenal and our girls just show up which is great,” said Park City coach Mikki Clayton.

For Park City, Thursday’s championship was its third in school history, winning previously in 2021 and 2023. Olympus had won the other girls titles in 2022 and 2024 since the sports began sanctioned by the UHSAA.

Olympus beat Park City 9-6 in last year’s championship, and that loss served as extra motivation this season.

“I think not winning this game last year has been something that’s been on their mind all season long. And so it was just the gritty, tenacity, tenacious play of they just wanted to win it, and they weren’t gonna let anything stop them,” said Clayton.

Magee, who led Park City in goals and points this season, said prioritizing fun made winning easy.

“Our two goals going into the year was get a state championship and joy. So basically, our main goal was just to go out there and have fun and that’s what we did and that’s like our best lacrosse and that’s what we’ve been doing this whole year. And so we all just had a blast out there and it showed,” said Magee, who had two goals in her final high school game, finishing with 57 on the season.

1 of 17

2 of 17

3 of 17

4 of 17

5 of 17

6 of 17

7 of 17

8 of 17

9 of 17

10 of 17

11 of 17

12 of 17

13 of 17

14 of 17

15 of 17

16 of 17

17 of 17

Wednesday’s final was the fourth straight year the two programs have met in the state championship game, with Olympus winning two of the previous three.

The game was competitive for most of the first half, with Olympus taking advantage of a yellow card with under three minutes remaining to cut the deficit to 8-5 on the third goal of the game from Lizzie Anne.

Park City took over from there, scoring twice before halftime, outscoring the Titans 5-0 in the third quarter and not conceding again until less than three minutes in the game.

Defensive stalwart Lily Yatkeman anchored the back as always for Park City.

“I think we’ve been in a really good flow recently. So just keep that and go for it and take risks and just play hard,” she said after the game.

Capping it off against rival Olympus made it all the sweeter.

“It’s a really fun rivalry, we love the Olympus team, we love the competition that they bring, there’s been a lot of back and forth between them, this year we came out on top. Hats off to Olympus, they played great and they were down a major player, but we came out to play today,” said Clayton.

Olympus lost its top point scorer, Sarah Anne, to an ACL injury in the opening minutes of a quarterfinal win over Brighton last week.

Without her skill and athleticism on the field, Olympus just didn’t have the attacking weapons to try and keep up with Park City.

Park City beat Olympus during the regular season, and it used a similar formula to win again in the season finale.

“Hats off to the whole team across the board. Our offense was clicking. Our midfield was playing great. Our defense rallied. Our goalie played phenomenal. It was really a true team went top to bottom,” said Clayton.