Between the Olympics, World Cups, high school sports and so much more, 2022 was a hectic year for Park City athletes. Here are some of the highlights:

5. Park City football caps off perfect home record with playoff win

Home-field advantage was huge for Park City High School’s football team this season.

Park City went through the regular season without dropping a game at home, helping the Miners earn the 16th seed and home-field advantage in the opening round of the Class 5A playoffs. Park City’s seniors had one more night together to defend their home turf against No. 17 Timpanogos, and they delivered. 

A pair of rushing touchdowns for senior Mason Grover helped the Miners take a 28-0 lead going into halftime. Park City held off a Timpanogos rally in the second half to come away with a 35-14 win and finish the season 6-0 at home. Park City’s Blake Tabaracci returned an interception for a touchdown in the fourth quarter to seal the win. 

“I’ve got to get into the end zone,” Tabaracci said after the game. “I’ve got to get some momentum going again. We came out a little flat coming into the third quarter, so I needed to get a little momentum shift going.”

Grover ended the game with 244 yards on the ground along with his two rushing touchdowns, and Tabaracci had another 74 yards on just seven carries. Defensively, the Miners had three sacks and bottled up a Timpanogos attack that had previously lit up the scoreboard for much of the season.

The Miners’ season would end the following week after losing to Lehi on the road, but the year featured an 8-3 overall record, a win over rival Wasatch to start the season and plenty of memorable Friday Night Lights action. 

4. World Cup sliding returns to Park City

World Cup action in bobsled and skeleton came back to the Utah Olympic Park in December for the first time since 2017, while the luge World Cup had its first races in Park City since 2016. Because of such a long hiatus, plenty of Parkites and visitors had their first taste of watching the world’s best sliders compete. 

Among other highlights, American bobsledder Kaillie Humphries, who won the gold medal in women’s monobob in Beijing in February, won the women’s monobob event in Park City. The monobob discipline is now on the World Cup circuit and was on full display at the Utah Olympic Park.

“I don’t think when it first came out everyone understood the depth of how great it can be,” Humphries said. “But I think it’s opened the sport to a lot more countries, a lot more women as a whole. And globally, I think it’s awesome. The price of the sled is a lot less as well, and with the monobobs being all the same worldwide, you really get to see the talent of the drivers as well as the athleticism in the push because the equipment is equal across the board. It’s not financially how much you’re putting into it, like the two-man or the four-man.”

On the luge side, Park City lugers Ashley Farquharson and Brittney Arndt finally had the opportunity to slide in front of their friends and family. Arndt scored her first-ever World Cup podium when she finished third in the women’s singles sprint event, and Farquharson was right behind her in fourth place. 

“I’m just stoked,” Arndt said after the race. “All my family is here. I’m just so happy. I’ve been close to the podium in Lake Placid before. But I was young, and it’s been a couple of hard years for me. I made a lot of changes this year for myself, and this backs all of that.”

3. Park City lacrosse continues to dominate

Park City High School’s boys lacrosse team claimed its first state title in 2022 since the sport was sanctioned for the first time by the Utah High School Activities Association in 2020. After a 3-4 start to the season following a trip to Colorado, the Miners went on a tear the rest of the season. Park City went 12-1 the rest of the way, with the lone loss coming against Olympus. 

The Miners entered the postseason as the second overall seed and cruised to the championship game. They outscored their first three playoff opponents 58-13 to set up a rematch with top-seeded, undefeated Olympus. That run through the postseason included a 20-3 thrashing of No. 3 Bountiful in the semifinals where Park City led 10-1 after the first quarter.

In a dramatic, back-and-forth title bout, Park City edged out the Titans 10-9 after the Miners scored two goals in the game’s final minute. 

The Miners were led by Chase Beyer, who scored a team-high five goals. Beyer scored to tie the game at nine goals apiece with under 40 seconds to go, and Brendan Johnson put the Miners in the lead for good seconds later. Park City’s Jack McHenry won the faceoff, sprinted down the field and passed it to Johnson, who put the ball in the back of the net. Park City held on to win the Class 5A state title after losing in the Division A championship game to Corner Canyon the previous year. 

“Everyone in Utah was saying we never beat a good team,” Park City’s John Trahan said after the game. “We lost to Valor Christian, we lost to Cherry Creek, Corner Canyon, Olympus, American Fork. We needed this. We really needed this. Because if not, a lot of kids were saying our season didn’t mean anything if we didn’t beat a good team. I think not so because we got a lot better this year. But I’m so glad the way this year turned out.”

Despite an undefeated record in the regular season, the girls were less fortunate in 2022. The Miners were rarely challenged en route to a trip to the championship game, but their bid to repeat as champions ended in a 10-9 loss to Olympus. 

Still, Park City continued to prove itself as a power in lacrosse in 2022. 

2. Fans return to Deer Valley for World Cup

A year after the annual freestyle skiing World Cup event held at Deer Valley went on without fans, spectators returned to Champion and White Owl in 2022 to watch the world’s best freestyle skiers duke it out over three days just weeks before the opening ceremonies in Beijing. Park City moguls skiers Nick Page, Cole McDonald and Bradley Wilson did their best to entertain the home crowd, and skiers who have adopted Park City as their home did the same. 

Maybe it wasn’t a full return to normal since it was held during the day instead of at night, like in previous years. But no sports year in Park City is complete without a trip to Deer Valley for three days of freestyle skiing World Cup action. 

McDonald competed at Deer Valley in a World Cup event for the first time and came away with a pair of top-16 finishes. McDonald went on to make his Olympic debut in Beijing as well. 

“I feel a lot better making it down the course and hearing the crowd chanting my name a little bit,” McDonald said after the second moguls competition.

Wilson took his final competitive lap down Champion as well. The three-time Olympian finished in the top 10 in both moguls events at Deer Valley and retired at the end of the season. 

“This is my last World Cup at Deer Valley in my career, so it’s pretty incredible,” Wilson said at the time. “This is (where I had my) first podium … this is my home mountain. It’s just crazy to think that this is my last World Cup here after 11 years.” 

But most of all, Parkites new and old could celebrate the return of an event that is one of many that makes Park City such a special place to live in.

1. Celebrating the Olympics of the past, present and future

To borrow a phrase from the 1993 classic Disney movie “Cool Runnings,” Park City felt very Olympic early in 2022. 

For one, Park City celebrated the 20th anniversary of when it welcomed the world to town for the 2002 Winter Olympics. For another, the year seemed filled with new developments when it came to potentially hosting another Games in 2030 or 2034. 

But there were the Olympics of the present to celebrate as well. And whether it was Park City natives or athletes who moved to Park City, there was plenty to celebrate.

Park City moguls skier Nick Page started the festivities with a thrilling run that left him just short of the podium in his Olympic debut. Park City Nordic combined athletes Jared Shumate and Stephen Schumann made their Olympic debuts, as did luger Ashley Farquharson. And while cross-country skier Rosie Brennan didn’t return from Beijing with a medal, she found redemption with several top-six finishes after a difficult trip to the Games in 2018. 

Plenty of Parkites came away from the 2022 Games with some hardware, too. 

Freeskier Colby Stevenson, whose career nearly ended in 2016 after a car accident, won a silver medal in big air. Fellow freeskier Alex Hall took home a gold medal in slopestyle. Aerial skiers Justin Schoenefeld, Ashley Caldwell and Chris Lillis stunned host country China in the mixed team aerials event to win gold. 

There was always some Olympic storyline to follow, and it usually had a Park City tie. Park City speedskater Casey Dawson made a frantic trip around the world that made headlines, desperately trying to make it to Beijing in time to compete after contracting and recovering from COVID-19 just before the Games. He still ended up winning a bronze medal in the team pursuit, making the stressful journey worth it. 

“An Olympic medal is an Olympic medal, no matter if it’s gold, silver or bronze,” Dawson said. “Just coming home with something to show your hard work is just awesome and come home and show my parents, show my brother, show my friends and everyone that wants to see it and hold it in their hands and be in awe holding it.”

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Park City speedskater Casey Dawson’s season had its ups and downs heading into back-to-back World Cups in Calgary, Canada, earlier in December. 

On the positive side, the 22-year-old helped the U.S. win a gold medal in the team pursuit at the first World Cup of the season. But he was also dealing with an illness, and his early results in his individual races weren’t what he wanted.

“I was sick the first two World Cups,” he said. “Like, pretty sick. I found out that my nose is pretty messed up, so I’m more prone to infections and stuff traveling and stuff. So, I had to deal with that, so they weren’t really that impressive individually wise. Just kind of figuring out how to skate while I’m sick and everything.”

Dawson turned his season around in Calgary. In addition to helping the U.S. win another medal in the team pursuit – the same event that he won a bronze medal in at the Olympics in February – Dawson finished in the top five in Division B in all his individual events. The Parkite heads into 2023 with some positive momentum.

“Finally in Calgary, I had some good races, and I was pretty happy about that,” Dawson said. “Good results finally pop out. It’s kind of been a rollercoaster of a year kind of just getting things back together after the Olympics.”

Dawson took some time off over the summer and traveled before getting back into training. He’s feeling optimistic in the first year of the new Olympic cycle. 

“Four years before Beijing, I wasn’t at this level yet, so to be here and build off that is a good place to be,” Dawson said. “Just setting those little goals and then to reach the ultimate goal in Italy in 2026.”

Dawson wasn’t alone in having a tough time as an individual early on. That was one of the positives of winning in the team pursuit with his American teammates.

“Our whole team, our individual results haven’t really been anything spectacular, but it just shows that us three – me, Ethan (Cepuran) and Emery (Lehman) – we can skate really well together in the team pursuit and do something in that,” Dawson said. “All the other countries are really strong individually, and we can still come together and beat them, which is pretty cool.”

“It’s tough not doing too well in your individual races because obviously you want to do good at those,” Dawson added. “But I think actually all of us were having some issues with our individual races. Being able to come together and skate well together at the team pursuit, it’s definitely a surprise to other countries because they’re expecting us not to do that well compared to our individual races. But it just shows how strong we are at the team pursuit, even if we’re not feeling our best.”

The American men topped the World Cup standings in the team pursuit last year in addition to winning a bronze medal in Beijing. They’ve picked up from where they left off last season and are in first place once again this year.

“Just keeping that momentum from last season into this season is still pretty sweet,” Dawson said. “We’re pretty happy to just know that we’re still at a good level and just know that we can still win against the gold medalist from the Olympics, Norway, and stuff. It’s cool to know that we can still do that and just continue that forward for years to come.”

In the Division B races in Calgary, Dawson finished third in the 5,000-meter event, fifth in the 1,500 meter in the first World Cup and then came back for the second World Cup to finish fourth in the 1,500 meter and third in the 10,000 meter. Dawson said finishing in the top three in Calgary will move him back to Division A heading into the final two World Cups in Poland in February. 

“From my sickness, losing my A Division spot in some of my races to going back up to A Division, it’s cool to see,” Dawson said. “But to actually be racing a little bit better than I have been, and it’s those little victories that keep you moving forward and move you up in those divisions.”

Dawson has nationals coming up in early January, but he’s also focused on the back-to-back World Cups in Poland as well as the world championships in early March. Dawson said he’s qualified for the world championships in the 10,000 meter and the team pursuit, but he’s also trying to make it in the 5,000 and 1,500.  

“We have two World Cups in Poland back to back, so there’s one team pursuit there and then two 5Ks and two 1,500s,” Dawson said. “And then world championships after that, which we want to try to get the world title in the team pursuit and try to skate my best in the 10K as well and maybe the 5K. … I guess that’s what (in) the next two World Cups I’ll have to do is qualify more distances.”

Dawson’s results in Calgary also give him something to build off heading into 2023.

“It’s cool to see that this is where I’m at for the next four years, and I can only build off it, get stronger,” Dawson said. “It’s a good baseline, and now I’m in A Division again.”

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Park City’s boys basketball team will play four games in four days this week in a tournament at Olympus High School starting on Tuesday. 

Park City was set to play Mountain Ridge on Tuesday, Layton Christian Academy on Wednesday, Hillcrest on Thursday and Tooele on Friday. The Miners are looking to reverse their fortunes as they enter the four-game stretch on a three-game losing skid. 

“We have some very challenging games at the Olympus tournament, which is why we play in the tournament,” Park City coach Thomas Purcell said. “Games against very good programs, and that’s kind of been the theme of the season. When we’ve played well, we’ve won, and when we’ve played poorly, we’ve lost.”

Between those four schools, Park City will have plenty of work on its hands.

“Mountain Ridge has a very good coach and a very strong program, and they had a very good team last year,” Purcell said. “I would expect that we’ll have a stiff challenge from Mountain Ridge. Layton Christian we’ve played in the offseason. We know what we’re getting into there, they’re a very strong team. Hillcrest, I used to work for the coach there when he was at Juan Diego, so I know them well. We’ve played them over the summer. Tooele, we don’t know much about yet.”

Park City won three of its first four games of the season, but the Miners are now 3-4 after losses to Cottonwood, Wasatch and Green Canyon. But this week presents an opportunity to regain some momentum and try to get back into the win column. 

“As a coach, the biggest thing that I want to do is to continue to get better every day and not necessarily bounce back or rise to the occasion,” Purcell said. “‘Are we getting better?’ is kind of my biggest question that I ask myself. And I think we have to answer that question this week. I think we have to get better all week long, even if it’s tough and even if we’re playing heavy minutes.”

Purcell laid down his expectations of what “playing better” looks like for the Miners this week.

“It looks like us taking care of the ball, it looks like us taking accountability defensively – both for our individual responsibilities as well as the team responsibilities – and to be honest, we need to play harder than the other team every time we play,” Purcell said. “Our teams have played really hard in the past, and this team played really hard at the beginning of the year. And we’ve got to get back to that.”

Purcell feels his team can hang with anyone this year at its best. The Miners will have plenty of opportunities to prove that they can this week, but it will take Park City’s best basketball to do that.

“We struggle, we don’t have a big margin for error,” Purcell said. “And then if you take a couple guys out of the game, we really don’t have a margin for error at all. And so, we just need to recognize that, and as coaches, we need to hold them accountable and to the standards that we need in order to reach our goals.”

Tuesday’s game was the first since a 64-37 loss to Green Canyon on Dec. 21. The holiday break came at a good time for the Miners, as it gave them some time to regroup and reevaluate ahead of the start of region play once the calendar flips to 2023. That includes the coaches, too. 

“I’m terrified of losing, but you’ll learn a lot more when you lose,” Purcell said. “I don’t think I would have taken the break to reexamine myself, my coaching style and how I was handling this team if we don’t have a little slip-up in the quality of our play. So, I think, for myself and for the team, (it) might have been good timing. And now, we’re going to play some heavy minutes, so it might be time to toughen up a little bit and get ready to go for region.”

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As Parkites have enjoyed plenty of snow early in the season, Park City’s best athletes have traveled the world in various sports. With the holidays and the start of 2023 approaching, here’s where they stand.

Moguls

It’s been a busy season for Park City moguls skiers already. 

Nick Page and Cole McDonald have landed on the podium already this season, and the two are in the top five in the overall World Cup standings so far. Page is third in the overall standings, third in moguls and sixth in dual moguls. McDonald is fifth overall, fourth in moguls and eighth in dual moguls. 

In their latest stop in Alpe d’Huez, France, McDonald took home his first podium finish after coming in third in moguls. He followed that up with a 17th-place finish in dual moguls. Page, who won his first World Cup event in the previous stop in Idre Fjall, Sweden, was fifth in moguls and 22nd in dual moguls. 

Alli Macuga made her World Cup debut earlier in the season, and she’s shown that she can hang with the world’s best. Macuga hasn’t finished lower than 13th in the five events she’s competed in, and she’s scored a pair of top-10 finishes. She’s 10th in the overall standings, 11th in moguls and 10th in dual moguls. 

Kasey Hogg scored her best World Cup result ever in France, coming in 14th in dual moguls. Hogg is 18th in the overall standings, 21st in moguls and 15th in dual moguls. 

The next moguls World Cup event will be held in late January at Val Saint-Come, Canada, before the circuit heads to Deer Valley in early February.

Freeskiing

Troy Podmilsak, who won a pair of gold medals at this year’s junior world championships, started the season with a bang when he finished third at a World Cup big air event in Chur, Switzerland, in October. Podmilsak added a sixth-place finish in big air at Copper Mountain on Dec. 16. 

Colby Stevenson became another Park City freeskier to land on the podium this season when he skied away from a slopestyle World Cup event in Stubai, Austria, in third place. Alex Hall came in fourth. 

Cross-country skiing/Speed skating

Cross-country skier Rosie Brennan scored her first podium of the season with a third-place finish in Davos, Switzerland, in the 20K freestyle in her last event on Dec. 18. Brennan has four top-10 finishes this year and is 12th in the overall standings. The Tour de Ski kicks off on Dec. 31.

Speedskater Casey Dawson helped the U.S. win two gold medals in the team pursuit on the World Cup circuit so far this season. The ISU long-distance standings list Dawson in 15th place. 

Ski jumping/Nordic combined

Park City ski jumper Paige Jones scored her best World Cup finish in an individual event ever this season. She came in 29th place in Lillehammer, Norway, in an HS140 competition on Dec. 4. She also helped the U.S. come in ninth in a mixed team event on Dec. 10. Additionally, Sam Macuga is in fifth in the overall Continental Cup standings. 

On the Nordic combined side, Jared Shumate had his best finish of the season when he came in 27th in a normal hill/10K event in Austria on Dec. 16. Shumate is the top American man in the World Cup standings in 46th.

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Park City moguls skier Cole McDonald was off to a fast start this season on the World Cup circuit heading into a stop in Alpe d’Huez, France, but he was missing one thing: a podium finish. 

McDonald had previously scored several top-10 results, including coming in fourth twice, but his first top-three finish at a World Cup event continued to escape him. At the previous moguls event in Idre Fjall, Sweden, McDonald qualified for the final round with the highest score, but he ended up coming in fifth. 

But McDonald’s quest for his first World Cup podium finally came to an end on Dec. 16 in Alpe d’Huez when he finished his moguls event in third place with a score of 75.17. Ikuma Horishima of Japan took first place, while Canada’s Mikael Kingsbury finished in second. 

A special day for McDonald was even sweeter because some of his family was there to see it. He said his father and his grandparents made the trip. 

“Felt amazing,” McDonald said. “Something that was definitely a big goal of mine this year. Being able to do it, especially (because) I had my family there watching. And being able to do it in front of them was even more amazing.”

McDonald qualified for the first finals round and barely made his way into the second finals round, coming in sixth to make the six-man field. Because of how close he cut it, McDonald knew what he would have to do if he wanted to compete for a podium position.

“I barely squeaked into that super final in sixth place, and I knew I had to put down a super fast, aggressive run to be able to get onto the podium,” McDonald said. 

That’s exactly what McDonald did. He ripped through the course in 19.98 seconds, registering the fastest time of the super final and finishing as the only one of the six skiers to record a time below 20 seconds. He stayed focused on attacking the course, even if he was a little out of control at times.

“I landed the jump on top air and wasn’t really in much control and just had to kind of hang on the whole way down so I wouldn’t crash,” McDonald said. “Ended up putting down a run. Wasn’t the best score whatsoever, but it was holding. And as I kept watching everybody come down after me, people were making mistakes, and I started getting pretty lucky and ended up with that third place.”

McDonald complemented his fast time with a double full on the first jump and a cork 1080 on the second. While he sees room for improvement, his fast, aggressive approach paid off. 

“I had to go super fast,” McDonald said. “And although it wasn’t the cleanest run I’ve had in Alpe d’Huez – it was not the cleanest – but it definitely was one of the fastest and most aggressive runs that day and with the highest trick scores as well.”

McDonald finished his trip to France with a 17th-place finish in dual moguls the next day. Heading into the 2023 slate of the schedule, he sits in fifth place in the overall moguls standings, fourth in moguls and eighth in dual moguls. 

“So far, it’s been a really good and consistent start to the season,” he said. “I have made every singles final so far this season and two super finals as well. Basically, so far this year, I’ve had a chance at the podium basically every single event. I’m having a lot more consistent results this year.” 

McDonald hopes to make his way into the top three of the World Cup standings and land on the podium more this year. But he’s also focusing on the world championships in February.

“Aside from an Olympic gold medal, that’s a step down from there to become a world champion,” he said. “That’s a big goal and the biggest competition we have so far this year.”

McDonald’s start to the season is a big step from last year, when he went from being named to the development team to making his World Cup debut and then competing on the circuit full time and making his Olympic debut in February. Now, he’s trying to establish himself among the world’s best moguls skiers. 

“It’s pretty crazy,” McDonald said. “Last year, most of the time I was just going to try to make finals. And now, we’re skiing for the win and for the podium, so it’s such a huge change. I was kind of like a smaller name out there, not as big. This year, I’m top five already and one of the big names out there. It’s pretty crazy.”

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Jonny Gustafson of the United States was the first luger down the track at the Utah Olympic Park on Saturday for the men’s singles sprint World Cup event. He had a clean run through the numerous twists and turns of the track and crossed the finish line in 27.729 seconds.

Since Gustafson was the first to go, there was nothing else he could do but watch as 14 more sliders tried to beat his time. 

One by one, they went down the track, but with the end of the field approaching, Gustafson was still at the top of the leaderboard. All that stood between him and his first podium finish on the World Cup circuit was three of the best sliders in the world. If one of them failed to beat his time, he would clinch at least a third-place finish. 

David Gleirscher of Austria knocked Gustafson off the top spot by less than a tenth of a second, and Germany’s Felix Loch then edged past the American to slide into second. Dominik Fischnaller of Italy ended Gustafson’s podium dreams for good with the fastest time on the last run of the event, pushing Gustafson to fourth.

But Gustafson’s fourth-place finish is still the best result of his career on the World Cup circuit, and it came on home soil. The American is now in the top 10 of the overall World Cup standings heading into the 2023 portion of the schedule. 

“It’s awesome, it means a lot,” Gustafson said. “I really hope we have more World Cups here in the upcoming seasons so we can get a best World Cup finish. Sprint World Cup is slightly different, but it still feels awesome. It feels good. I love Park City, I love racing here, I love sliding here and it’s just awesome.”

Gustafson’s weekend didn’t get off to the start he was hoping for during the men’s singles World Cup event Friday night. A couple of errors set him back on the first run, and his second one was even slower. He finished in 15th, barely making the cut for the sprint event the next day and setting him up to be the first slider down the track. 

“Yesterday wasn’t what I wanted,” Gustafson said on Saturday. “Neither of my runs were clean, had problems in different parts of the track. I think I’m 15th with those not great runs. I was happy to make it into the sprint, but also very disappointed in my performance.”

Which is why redemption was so important for Gustafson in Saturday’s sprint race. He cleaned up his mistakes from Friday and completed a smooth, efficient run. 

“It felt awesome,” Gustafson said. “Seeing everyone come down one after the other and just kept climbing a little bit more. I kind of knew after a couple runs I was going to be up there pretty far. Being that close to a medal, it would have been nice to get a little bit faster. But fourth is still my best result of my career, so I really can’t complain.”

Gustafson added that there were complicated emotions as he watched the rest of the field try to knock him off the top spot. Usually in luge, there are plenty of lead changes on the second and final run since the order runs from the slowest to the fastest luger. But since the sprint World Cup events only use one run, the first person to go still has a chance to win.

“It’s always a weird feeling because when you see someone make a mistake, you’re not cheering for it,” he said. “You want everyone, for the most part, to have a good run and your good run to beat their good run. You have that minor amount better than they did. I think I did that with a lot of sleds. Some sleds had some mistakes, and that’s the sport. Just climbing and climbing with each sled, I was just ecstatic.”

Gustafson is looking to carry his positive momentum into the rest of the season in 2023 following the holiday break. The World Cup’s next stop is in Sigulda, Latvia, in early January. 

“It’s definitely good to have my best result here right before Christmas,” Gustafson said. “Now I have about 10 days before we start traveling again where I’m going to be on that high, and I think that’s going to carry me through Christmas and set me in a good mood for the second half of the season.”

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For American doubles lugers, it all started as a joke. Maybe it’s fitting for a goofy-looking discipline where two sliders are stacked on top of each other and slide down an icy track at speeds that are usually only seen in the Park City area on Interstate 80 heading down Parleys Canyon. 

“We used to say it as a joke all the time when we were younger, ‘Oh, we’ll do doubles and stuff,’ while we were racing each other in singles,’” said Zack DiGregorio, who is partnered with Sean Hollander. “And then, a year before the Olympics, Coach came up to us and offered us the chance to do doubles together, and when he offered it, we right away said yes.”

“We’ve both been sliding singles for – I’ve been sliding for 16 years now – and we talked about it as a joke for a while,” added Summer Britcher, who partnered with Emily Sweeney. “And then this spring, OK, we’re going to give it a try. Why not? It’s something new, it’s the first year in the Olympic quad, so we can kind of pull our focus away from our regular discipline a little bit. Just kind of made a decision and fully committed to it when the IOC announced that it would be an Olympic event along with men’s doubles.”

All four competed on home ice on Friday and Saturday at the Utah Olympic Park during the World Cup’s stop in Park City. DiGregorio and Hollander finished fourth in men’s doubles and seventh in the sprint event, while Britcher and Sweeney scored fourth-place finishes in both of their races. 

DiGregorio and Hollander’s transition to doubles luge wasn’t exactly smooth.

“It was pretty hard the first couple of years – it’s a lot of hard crashes when you’re still figuring it out,” Hollander said. “But we’ve thankfully been able to keep the shiny side down this year.”

For aerodynamic reasons, the taller person is the person on top. Hollander previously competed in doubles as the man on top, but in this partnership, he’s now on the bottom.

“It was a whole new world,” Hollander said. “You have to feel the sled more, you have to feel the track more. It’s more visualization and stuff like that.”

The person on top is the one who can see, so steering can be a challenge. At the high speeds the sled travels, there’s no time to verbally communicate ahead of a turn. Instead, Hollander takes cues from DiGregorio’s body language.

“I follow his shoulders and his head,” Hollander said. “He leans into a curve, kind of gives me a cue.”

DiGregorio is attached to the sled as the top man, and the position comes with a few changes from singles.

“It’s a weird one,” DiGregorio said. “You’re basically fully exposed. Any wall you hit, you’re hitting. If you crash, you’ve got your weight, Sean’s weight and the sled’s weight all on top of you.

“You’re higher up, you’re seeing above the short walls of curves that you never have before, so it feels different that way. You can see more because even when your head’s all the way back on Sean’s chest, it’s not as far back as you would be in singles.”

The two had their struggles last year, finishing 26th in the overall standings as they adjusted to doubles and appearing on the World Cup circuit. However, it did include a trip to the Olympics, where they finished 11th in doubles and seventh in the team relay. This year, with more knowledge of the tracks, more experience under their belt and a couple of stops in North America, their confidence has grown immensely.

“We go to a new track, and we’ve already been there,” DiGregorio said. “Last year, we were going to all these new tracks each week. And now, it’s repeating, and once you have that, it really helps you get more comfortable right from that first run, where you have gameplan going into it and then you can execute better throughout the week.”

The frigid temperatures and their past experiences with home ice in Park City finally gave DiGregorio and Hollander a leg up on the competition. Whether it was competing away from North America last year or going up against teams who have been competing in doubles for years, that hasn’t always been the case. But in Park City, they shined, scoring their best World Cup finish in fourth. 

“It’s so nice, and the ice conditions played so well into our advantage because we have so many runs here,” Hollander said. “When the ice gets so hard, it’s just so hard to find grip with our sharp steel. It played into our court and took advantage of it.”

For Britcher and Sweeney, this is the first year women’s doubles luge has been on the World Cup circuit. They’re both luge veterans on the singles side and have spent years together on the road, so the all-important chemistry side of the equation has already been solved.

“We’ve been teammates for a very long time, we’ve gone to two Olympics together, we’ve been on the podium together, we’ve messed up together,” Britcher said. “We had to put in a lot of work into learning how to communicate as teammates that are competing against each other all the time. So when we decided, hey, we’re going to be teammate-teammates, we’re going to do doubles together, it was kind of like we had already done all the hard work. We already figured out how to communicate well and work together and accomplish success as competitive teammates.”

Between the start and finish lines, Sweeney summed up her job as the woman on the bottom. Britcher added that since Sweeney has more contact with the sled, she can shift her body into curves. 

“At the start, we’re both pulling,” she said. “I have straps that kind of are attached to Summer’s hands, so when she pulls, I have contact as well. I’m helping propel the sled. And then once we lay down, I’m more of the blending on and off the curves, the smaller drives. And when she needs help on the big drives, then I kind of step in as well.”

Britcher’s first impressions of doubles luge weren’t positive, but with time, she’s gotten a feel for it.

“When Emily and I decided to do doubles, I said, ‘OK, you’re going to have to give me two days where I’m just freaking out, and I’ll be on board,’” Britcher said. “I was freaking out for the first probably two sessions.”

The experiment has mostly been a success so far, even if it has come with some frustrating finishes. Britcher and Sweeney have recorded four straight fourth-place finishes and are still looking for their first trip to the podium together. But Britcher sees the potential.

“We’ve been showing great speed, we have great potential, it’s just challenging to put it together in a race,” she said. “But that’s normal. It took me a long time to be able to put together two race runs and get on the podium. To be close to the podium so quickly is definitely a good sign of promise.”

Britcher and Sweeney are still racing singles, which has had its demands. For example, on Saturday alone, they had two singles runs, a doubles sprint run and then a singles sprint run. But there’s also something rewarding about an experiment like this. 

“The thing that’s unique about Summer and I is coming together, we’re old to start something new like this, right?” Sweeney said. “But it’s been really cool to see how we’ve developed our communication styles. We’re coming together not as kids who don’t really know how to talk to each other yet. We’re coming together a little longer, later down the road. It’s been fun to see how well we’ve just clicked, especially going from competitors to teammates.”

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When teammate and fellow Park City luger Ashley Farquharson finished with what was then the fastest time in the women’s singles sprint World Cup event Saturday afternoon at the Utah Olympic Park, Brittney Arndt knew she had a challenge on her hands. 

Arndt responded by edging Farquharson out with a time of 31.902 seconds to take the lead. It held up as the third-fastest run of the event, giving the Park City luger her first podium finish on the World Cup circuit.

“I’m just stoked,” Arndt said. “All my family is here. I’m just so happy. I’ve been close to the podium in Lake Placid before. But I was young, and it’s been a couple of hard years for me. I made a lot of changes this year for myself, and this backs all of that.”

Arndt’s third-place finish in the sprint race capped off a successful day of women’s singles luge for the United States. Emily Sweeney, Arndt and Farquharson all finished in the top 10 in both women’s singles races on Saturday, led by Sweeney’s second-place result earlier on Saturday. All three women are in the top 10 of the overall World Cup standings after last weekend’s performances.

“I was actually a little nervous because I only had three training runs this week,” Sweeney said. “I only took three training runs. I was a little not completely set about one curve. But I just let myself let my body do it. I know what to do at this point.”

In the first women’s singles race, Farquharson and Arndt were neck-and-neck, finishing sixth and seventh after the first run, respectively. Arndt stayed in seventh after her second and final run, but a couple of mistakes by Farquharson dropped her to ninth.

Since both women finished in the top 15 out of the 31 in the field, they qualified for the sprint World Cup race held that afternoon, giving them one more run in front of their friends and family. That was important for Farquharson. Park City hadn’t hosted a luge World Cup event since 2016 before last weekend. 

“A lot of (my family) have never seen me slide, so that was very cool,” she said. “My parents haven’t gotten to come to a World Cup in — ever, actually. So, I think they were really, really excited as well.”

It was only fitting then that the two Park City sliders were in the top two for much of the sprint World Cup event. Farquharson and Arndt had the opportunity to spend some time in the leader’s box together. They were eventually dethroned, but it was a special moment for both.

“For quite a while, that was the first time that that had happened for the two of us, so that was very cool, especially at home,” Farquharson said. 

The two started what would turn into a career in luge together at the Utah Olympic Park years ago, and they continue to support each other. 

“Ashley and I are great friends,” Arndt said. “We’ve traveled forever together, and it’s awesome. We’re always so happy for each other. I texted her this morning because I didn’t stay with the team, I’m at my apartment. I just said, ‘Hey, I love you. We got this today. I’m so proud of you, and we can do this.’ We have a great relationship. I’m happy about that as Park City girls.”

Arndt took some time off from the sport after missing out on going to the Olympics earlier this year, and she decided to move back home to Park City after spending the last several years in Lake Placid, New York. 

“I just spent a lot of time outside and doing other stuff and then started training a little bit later,” Arndt said. “I don’t know, I’m just a lot happier, so I think that’s helped me a lot.”

When it all came full circle for Arndt on Saturday in Park City, it confirmed to her what she’s capable of.

“It’s reassuring for me, and I’ve always known that I can have the speed,” Arndt said. “It’s just I had a hard time putting that together, so this has been a great weekend for me. I’m very happy.”

The pressure was on for Arndt when she had to follow up Farquharson’s run, and she delivered. But she had to wait at the bottom afterward and watch an agonizingly long list of the best sliders in the world to see where she ended up.

“(Ashley) threw down a pretty quick run, and I was like, ‘Alright, I’ve got to pick it up,’” Arndt said. “When I came down here, I knew it was a fast run. I was happy with it, but I didn’t know it was that fast. Just watching the sleds go down and go down, I was stressed out.”

What was the highlight of the weekend for one Park City slider was heartbreak for another, as Farquharson barely missed out on her first podium finish in an individual event at the World Cup level. But she came away feeling positive about the weekend as a whole.

“We’re all knocking on the door, so to speak,” she said. “I think it’s really promising. To not have the World Cup here in so many years and then perform, I think it was really nice.

“Just off the podium, but I was really happy with my run, so not much more you can do at that point.”

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In a tight game full of twists and turns, Park City senior Matthew Hale gave the Miners one final jolt against Morgan on Dec. 6.

The Trojans sank a three-pointer with about 10 seconds left in the fourth quarter to give them a two-point lead. Park City senior Khai Lockwood received the inbound pass on the right side and raced up the court as the clock ticked down. 

Lockwood saw plenty of Morgan defenders on the right side and cut to his left. With the Morgan defense keeping its eyes on Lockwood, he spotted Hale open to his left, just above the three-point line. Hale gathered the ball in his hands and let it fly.  

It was a perfect swish, nothing but net, as the shot clock above the backboard hit double zeroes and the ball hit the floor. Bedlam erupted in Morgan, or at least as much as it could in the opponent’s gym 45 minutes away from home. Teammates mobbed Hale, and the Miners celebrated their third win in their first four games. 

“We all grow up kind of fantasizing of doing that, kind of dreaming of that, and for me to do that, it just felt so crazy,” Hale said. “I kind of went a little bit of shock afterward. Just like, ‘Man, did that really go in?’”

Hale had arguably his best game of the season in the win over Morgan, scoring a team-high 24 points, including the buzzer-beater to put the Miners on top for good. The senior is Park City’s top scorer this season heading into Friday night’s game against Wasatch, and his emergence this year has given the Miners a leader on the court and away from it.

It wasn’t always this way, either. Hale was cut from the sophomore team two years ago and worked his way toward being the player he is now.

“He went from being cut from the sophomore team to, I think, if he doesn’t pick up a whole bunch of Division III offers, I think they’re crazy,” Park City coach Thomas Purcell said. “Anyone that has his attitude, his work ethic, his ability to shoot the ball can play on most teams.”

Purcell mentioned how Hale leads by example. Part of that is Hale’s work ethic and dedication to improving his game. During the pandemic, he would shovel snow off the basketball court in his neighborhood and shoot “250 makes” every day. 

“You do what you want to do, and I didn’t have much of anything to do during that time,” Hale said. 

After Hale’s sophomore season, he caught Purcell completely off guard. Purcell said that, due to COVID-19 regulations during Hale’s sophomore year, different grades were in different gyms for tryouts, so the coaches were in different gyms as well. Hale added that he had recently had surgery and had just gotten cleared to play a couple of days before tryouts, so he was out of shape. 

“After the season was over, we kind of starting shooting around again and playing some games,” Purcell recalled. “I thought, ‘Who the hell is that guy? Did he transfer in?’ No, he got cut. I didn’t know who he was, and that was kind of our first introduction.

“I said, ‘Well, anyone that can shoot the ball that way can play for me. He likes to shoot the ball, and he’s a great shooter. He just kept getting better and better and better nonstop. He works really hard.”

Now, Hale and Lockwood serve as senior captains, and both have the potential to lead Park City in scoring on any given night. In Park City’s win over Taylorsville on Nov. 29, Lockwood had a team-high 26 points, while Hale had another 15 with three three-pointers on the night. Park City dug itself a big hole early in that game, and Hale helped rally the team to get back in the game and eventually come away with the win.

“He was a vocal leader at that point, got things stabilized,” Purcell said. “We chipped away, we won that game the right way. I think his leadership is developing, but kids naturally follow him. That’s what made him a captain in the spring, and he’s been a good choice.”

Their style is complementary of each other. Lockwood is more of an outgoing, talkative type of captain, while Hale lets his actions speak for themselves.

“He does a great job, he leads by example, he’s a really good leader talking to people,” Lockwood said. “Even if you ask other people, I’m definitely a lot louder. It’s almost to a fault, but I’ve definitely been more vocal, which I think is important.”

The two are close friends away from the court, and for as good of a basketball player as Hale is, Lockwood thinks of him as an even better person.  

“Obviously, he’s a great basketball player, but even as a person, he’s a great person. He’s always doing the right thing. We’ve played together for four years at this point. I’m on the same teams, and we’ve always been in the same role. So, I’ve gotten really close to him. He’s one of my closest friends, and he’s just a great guy.”

Last year, Hale had some playing time at the varsity level, but he’s cranked it up to a completely different level this year. Purcell went from being happy with his performance any time Hale scored last year to leaning on Hale to put the ball in the basket this year. Hale’s play should also open up the playbook for Park City on offense.

“I think how we’re defended as a team is going to change because of him and because of the way he’s shot the ball,” Purcell said. “I think people will follow him, there won’t be any help off of him. That will open up the floor for our big guys, and that will open up the floor for other guards to really do some damage.”

Park City fell to 3-2 on the season with a loss to Cottonwood at home Wednesday night ahead of its trip to Heber City on Friday. Hale’s hope for his senior year is that the Miners finish the year with a winning record, which the Miners have struggled to attain historically. 

But regardless of the way the rest of the season plays out for Park City, he’ll always have the one night in Morgan when he silenced an entire gym on the road. 

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The Utah High School Activities Association Board of Trustees set a new alignment on Thursday for the next two years that would see Park City High School move down to Class 4A from Class 5A for every sport. 

The change will take place starting the 2023-24 school year, and with the move comes a new region. Park City will retain Murray as a regional opponent from its current region, and Cottonwood, Hillcrest, Jordan, Stansbury and Tooele will make up the rest of the new Region 10. 

“We’re happy,” said Jamie Sheetz, Park City’s athletic director. “Hillcrest, Cottonwood, Murray, Jordan, they’re all Salt Lake schools. It just shifts just a tad out because you get rid of East, Highland, Skyline and Olympus. You get rid of the east there, and then you just pick up a little bit more of the southeast schools with those other ones. We’re OK with it. We’re happy with it.”

Park City has been in Class 5A for all sports since the start of the 2021-22 school year and was in the classification in everything but football in the previous two-year cycle. While Sheetz said going back to being in Class 5A for everything but football again was considered, it didn’t make sense once the enrollment numbers came out. Even in the new Class 4A, Park City is one of the smaller schools. 

“Truthfully, we dropped down so far in 4A that it almost became a non-starter to even talk about 5A, but we’ve had some success in 5A, especially in certain sports,” Sheetz said. “We think we can still compete in 5A if we stayed there, but our enrollment, just where we sit amongst the group of Utah schools now has dropped so low there. Maybe we just accept that this is where we’re at for right now and see what the future holds.”

South Summit will continue to be in Class 3A in all activities but football, for which it will stay in Class 2A. The same goes for North Summit, which is in Class 2A for non-football activities and Class 1A on the gridiron. 

There is still one more step in the realignment process. Schools can apply to have a specific sport or activity placed in a higher classification. Their requests will be considered in the Board of Trustees meeting on Jan. 19. 

Sheetz said Park City would apply to have its lacrosse teams move up to either Class 5A or Class 6A, with the final decision coming after talking to both programs. Park City’s boys lacrosse team took home the Class 5A state championship last season. The girls lacrosse team is 36-1 in the last two seasons and won a state title in 2021. 

“They need to be competing at a higher level, that’s where they’re at,” Sheetz said. “They’re the one program that we’ve got that would compete for a state championship at that level, final four or semifinals, at the 5A and 6A levels.”

Park City moving down to Class 4A would also be a shift for the football team. Park City went a combined 13-9 in two seasons in Class 5A with two playoff wins and two exits in the second round. But being a smaller school means it can be tougher to match up to bigger schools physically. 

“It’s a personnel issue, really, in terms of depth,” Sheetz said. “It’s tougher for us as a smaller school in 5A – or was – to get deeper into the playoffs because a lot of times we show up to the playoffs a little dinged up with guys on the sidelines. I think, we believe, it’s much less likely to occur in (4A). Smaller student bodies generally have not as many kids to select from, and so you generally don’t have as many big kids out there. You have fewer. Not that things still can’t happen, but the likelihood of us physically being beat up as much, I think, is less likely.”

Moving down to Class 4A doesn’t necessarily mean an easier schedule in all sports – Sheetz mentioned the strength of softball and baseball in Class 4A. But Sheetz believes this is the best fit for Park City for now.

“It just depends on the sport,” he said. “But across the board, we feel comfortable saying we’re going to stick with (4A).”

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