Patrick Stevenson lived out every young soccer player’s dream on Friday afternoon.
He played in a final, won a final and scored a hat trick in the process.
Stevenson scored all three of Lone Peak’s goals in the 6A state championship win over Farmington, including two in the final six minutes as the Knights won 3-1 to capture their first state championship since 2005.
“Those are the type of things you sit in bed at night and just daydream about, and for it to become a reality is just so amazing. I couldn’t be more happy,” said the senior Lone Peak striker.
Despite the Knights’ recent history of underachieving in the postseason, Stevenson said none of that mattered heading into one last shot for championship glory in a Lone Peak uniform.
“We came into this with nothing to lose. It’s our first time in the finals for 21 years. I mean, there’s nothing we have to lose. We tried not to carry on the past, but there’s always a little bit dragging on you, but we just went out there, played our best, and just went and fought out there,” said Stevenson, who was sporting a fresh gash above his right eye after the championship trophy slipped out of grasp during the celebration madness.
First-year Knights coach Kyle Hartman said mentality is something he’s tried to work on a lot with this year’s squad to shed the stereotype of a program that falters in the playoffs
“We worked a lot on coming together as a team, how to overcome mistakes, how to stay together and not break down when opposition comes, and so that’s been our focus all year,” he said.
“We’ve been battle-tested in lots of games. We haven’t had a lot of blowouts. Most of our games have been one, maybe two goals max. We’ve gone into overtime, we’ve had PKs, and so those games, I think, prepared them when the game got difficult or it’s tight.”
Just 10 minutes into Friday’s final, that entire mentality got tested.
A mistake along the backline from Lone Peak allowed Farmington’s Jack Burrup to have a free run into the box 1v1 with keeper Sam Parker. Burrup calmly slotted his shot past Parker for the 1-0 Phoenix lead.
But within 13 minutes, Lone Peak was back on level terms after Stevenson received a pass from Kien Cin near the edge of the penalty box and uncorked the equalizing goal into the back of the net.
“It was all just about fighting. It was so nice to go grab that first goal in the first half to go into halftime even. When you go into halftime even, it’s so much easier to come out second half and just be able to fight, fight even harder knowing that you can get one goal and you’re up,” said Stevenson.
Hartman said Lone Peak’s coaching staff felt very comfortable tied at 1-1 at the half, especially after settling down defensively after conceding that early goal.
“We worked a lot in our practice making sure our defensive line was connected, our midfield was getting back, wingers are dropping to pick up their wingbacks if they dropped him, and I felt for the most part, other than that one goal he got, we did a good job containing that,” said Hartman.
Both teams created half chances early in the second half, but about the 70th minute the field started tilting in Lone Peak’s favor. Stevenson barely put a flicked header wide, and a couple minutes later he headed a shot off the crossbar.
In the 74th minute, Stevenson finally found the breakthrough as he slipped just behind Farmington’s center backs to receive a through ball from Jonas Lamont, smashing the ball into the back of the net for the 2-1 lead.
“Jonas and I, we run that every day during training,” Stevenson said. “When I play 9, my freshman coach taught me how to play 9 and how to float behind defenders and then run onside—then come off—run offside and then come onside right at the last second.
“Me and Jonas just have that connection. I made that eye contact with him and I just knew he was going to play it to me.”
Stevenson put the punctuation mark on Lone Peak’s triumph, bagging his hat trick on a long-range shot with 30 seconds left in the match.
Hartman said it was fitting that Stevenson was the hat trick hero.
“Patrick is one of the most humble soccer players I’ve ever met with his skill level,” The coach said. “He’s all about the team. He’s not about himself.
“He’d rather three other guys score goals than himself, but I told him before this game, I said, ‘Patrick, you got to put the team on your back. This is your moment. You’ve had this for four years, you’ve lost three years in a row in the state tournament, this is your chance.’”
Stevenson delivered, and Lone Peak’s defense closed up shop after that 10th minute mistake to clinch the title.