While Park City’s 2026 schedule is packed with marquee, circle-worthy games, in reality, Friday’s trip to Brighton was the only one worthy of the brightest Sharpie in the drawer.
The Miners have lost to Brighton in the 5A championship game each of the past two seasons, including a wild 10-9 loss a year ago, so there was no shortage of motivation in the hyped rematch.
“We look at the season as a series of building blocks. Brighton’s always a good team, always very competitive, but there was a little bit of remembering what happened in the tournament last time we played them,” said Park City head coach Michael Persky.
Spurred on by another dominant defensive performance, Park City reclaimed bragging rights, for one night at least. It held Brighton to just one goal after the first quarter, rallying for the 5-3 victory on a night with five different goal scorers.
“Our defense has been playing great all year,” Persky said. “Our offense, we’ve got a lot of good pieces, we just haven’t figured out how to put them all together yet, but I thought the boys had a lot more patience in the second half than they did in the first half, and in the end that’s what allowed them to prevail.”
Brett Hughes scored the go-ahead goal for the Miners with 11 seconds left in the third quarter, and then Crew Kimble tacked on an insurance goal to put his team up 5-3 midway through the fourth quarter.
Park City improved to 7-2 with the victory, and 7-0 against Utah teams.
As satisfying as the win victory was, Park City’s players know that wins in April aren’t the same as wins in late May. In each of the past two seasons, Park City beat Brighton in the regular season only to lose in the state championship rematch.
That reality was no doubt on both teams’ minds after they walked off the field on Friday night.
“We just need them to continue to believe in each other. They’re starting to gel. They’re starting to figure out that if they stick with their principles and they stick with the intensity, we’re going to be alright,” said Persky.
Both teams figure to be just fine all season if they get goalkeeping like they did on Friday. Park City’s Max Gordon and Brighton’s Landon Stosich routinely made difficult saves throughout the game to keep it surprisingly low-scoring.
Zac Anderson and Bode Linford scored early to give Brighton the 2-1 lead after the first quarter — with Thomas Fannon notching Park City’s early goal — and the score stayed the same until halftime.
Persky summed up Park City’s first half this way: “We had volume (shots) but not necessarily quality.”
He challenged his team to be more patient in the second half and look for even better shots. It paid off pretty quickly, with Wyatt Williamson and Samuel Gould scoring in the first six minutes of the third quarter to put the Miners ahead 3-2.
Brighton’s Linford equalized with under 90 seconds left in the third quarter, but the momentum didn’t last long as Park City’s Hughes gave his team the lead for good with 11 seconds left in the quarter.
In the fourth, the Miners showed expert game management to see out of the victory.
“We did a much better job of taking care of the ball and not turning it over in the fourth quarter,” said Persky. “The defense is really playing great. To hold a team like Brighton to three goals is a pretty strong performance.”
For Brighton, it fell to 5-2 with its second straight loss after five straight wins to open the season. The Bengals will have a week off for spring break but then look to regroup for a strong push in the second half of the season.