High school girls lacrosse: No. 1 Olympus, No. 2 Park City set for 5A title rematch

The 5A girls lacrosse semifinal matches were played at Westminster College in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, where Olympus and Park City advanced to the championship.

Olympus 19, Brighton 6

SALT LAKE CITY — A lightning delay late in the first half only served to delay the inevitable as No. 1 Olympus girls lacrosse charged on to its second-straight 5A state championship berth.

The Titans briefly trailed 1-0 in the first couple of minutes against region foe No. 4 Brighton, but the lightning may have been just the second-fastest thing to strike in the area. Within just a minute and 13 seconds of play, Olympus turned the 1-0 deficit into a 5-1 lead as the Titans hammered the flabbergasted Bengals.

The win moved the Titans to 17-0 on the year. Sixteen of those wins came by a double-digit number of points, with the only opponent to play them closer than that being the team they’ll face next.

Thanks to two late scoring opportunities, junior midfielder Hannah Nelson led all scorers with four goals on the evening. Masami Goodick, a sophomore newcomer to the team, came up big with three goals.

After the first three minutes, Olympus never really relinquished control of the game flow as the match wavered between quick scoring outbursts from the Titans separated by lengthy, methodical, “keep-away” possessions from Brighton to try and get a point here and there.

After Olympus’s first barrage, the Titans went on another at the 10:57 mark in the first half, scoring three goals in under a minute in response to a two-goal rally by the Bengals and extending their lead to 9-3.

Minutes later, Brighton’s lead scorer Isabelle Gurley appeared to launch a goal in from the left side. Due to her stick making contact with a player during the shot motion, Gurley’s goal was negated, and she was instead yellow-carded at almost the exact same time as the lightning delay began.

After a long wait, the Titans went back to work and outscored Brighton, 3-1, in the final 6:35 of the first half, including two goals in the final 15 seconds, to enter halftime with a 13-4 lead.

Coming out of the break, Brighton had renewed energy on defense and held the game scoreless over the next five minutes of play. The Bengals couldn’t manage to break through Olympus’s defense either at that time and eventually, the dam broke for Brighton to allow another 4-0 scoring run by the Titans. Most of the second half went on with a running clock.

The Titans will go into the championship game fielding four different players with over 50 goals each on the season.

Park City 15, Wasatch 4

SALT LAKE CITY — The Miners have been looking forward to a big-time rematch, and now they’ll get it.

No. 2 Park City used a big second half to run away as it downed No. 3 Wasatch, 15-4, to earn its third straight trip to the state championship game. The Miners have not missed a title game since lacrosse was sanctioned by the UHSAA and began play in 2021.

Senior attacker Lilly Hunt led all scorers, outscoring Wasatch by herself as she gave Park City five goals, including four in the second half.

The Miners’ record moved to 14-4 on the season, and most of their losses were in non-region competition out of state. Their only loss in Utah just happens to be against their next opponent, No. 1 Olympus. The two teams’ previous meeting provided a glimpse of just how powerfully and evenly matched the two squads are, when Olympus maintained its undefeated record with a slim 14-13 victory.

“We always take the season one game at a time, but this is something we’ve been looking forward to,” Park City coach Mikki Clayton. “We want this rematch against Olympus.”

For whatever reason, be it rain delays, shortened warmups, a start time of nearly 8:15 p.m., or a combination of several factors, the Miners were admittedly out of sorts in the majority of the first half and struggled to shake the relentless and energetic attack of the Wasps, who were bolstered by an impressively fiery crowd of yellow-clad Wasatch fans.

“Sometimes it’s mental…things happened that can just get in your head,” Clayton said. “We just told them (at halftime) that they have to come out with fire, and they had to come out with heart, and they had to play for one another. I think they clearly all got that message.”

After a defensive back-and-forth in the first five minutes, Park City got off to a good start with three straight goals from three different players. Wasatch finally found the back of the net with 11:59 remaining before Hunt scored her first goal to put the Miners up, 4-1.

A goal by Wasatch off an assist at the 5:50 mark got Wasatch’s crowd back into it, and the Wasps rallied with another goal at 2:46 remaining to pull within a goal. Park City scored again in the final 90 seconds to take a 5-3 lead into halftime.

Whether that final goal of the half was part of a momentum shift back to the Miners or not, it was certain when Park City came back that they were ready to step it up. The Miners responded to the narrow lead and turned the whole game around, shutting down Wasatch offensively to where they could hardly manage a shot while scoring the next nine goals consecutively over the next 21 minutes, including a 3-0 run in the final 59 seconds of that timespan.

What looked like a hotly contested affair at halftime turned into a game with a running clock with six minutes left. Following the game, Miners assistant coaches could be heard reminding their players that Olympus won’t allow them to just be a second-half team.

Park City and Olympus will face each other for the 5A state championship on Thursday at 8 p.m. MDT at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman.