They walked off the field dejected.
They slowly pulled their rain-soaked jerseys over their heads, took long, deep breaths and exhaled. They couldn’t help but wish they just had the last two hours to do all over.
In what was billed as the most important match of the season, the Park City Miners were dismantled by rival Wasatch 3-0 Wednesday afternoon at Dozier Field.
“My team is asking themselves a lot of questions today,” said Park City head coach Caro Caro afterward. “It’s a reality check. The fact is, this is it we need to work on our heart. If we want to be playing a team like Wasatch, we have to be playing with the same intensity.”
The nightmare was a replay of what happened in the Miners’ 1-0 loss to the Wasps in Heber on March 30: Wasatch scored a goal within the first five minutes of the match. This time, the Wasps stung first with a goal after two minutes as a fortuitous ball rolled to the wide-open feet of Austin Broadhead of Wasatch and he finished.
Caro said his team, as talented and full of potential as it may be, has had a difficult time responding to misfortune this year.
“I praise them for a lot of good things, but I also have to be realistic,” he said. “These kids don’t have that sense of overcoming adversity especially when it comes as early as it came in this game.
“I think they put their heads down, and then the next two goals were just obvious mistakes.”
Wasatch star sophomore midfielder Alex Espinoza who leads the Wasps with 15 goals so far this season buried the second goal against Park City after a ball deflected off a Miners’ defender and left the minuscule Espinoza one-on-one with the Park City goalkeeper. Wasatch went into the half up 2-0.
While Park City was able to put together some decent strings of possession in the second half, the disconnect offensively was evident. Caro said he has never really seen this with a team late in the season and may have to go back to the drawing board and make some lineup changes.
“The problem is, when the midfield breaks down, they hold the ball a little too long and my strikers are making the runs,” he said. “They have to come back and help and they get out of position. The passes aren’t coming in a timely manner.
“This is something new. Instead of progressing in a very organized attacking way, we have regressed. It’s a pill that’s hard to swallow and now, we have to go back to the basics.”
Wasatch would tally its third and final goal when a rifle shot by Jonathan Wheatley was mishandled by Park City keeper Tanner Keim and Wasps forward Jackson Cheal was there to bury the wide-open shot.
Caro said he was reluctant to be thrust into a situation where his team was suddenly down 1-0 in the match’s opening minutes and wished it had started out on a different foot.
“I think the panic button came way too early,” he said. “Believe it or not, as soon as that goal came in, it really hit us hard. We were so pumped yesterday.
“It’s hard. It’s hard to all of a sudden start coaching and yelling at the kids. You just create more panic and a sense of urgency rather than calming down and seeing what’s going on and playing hard and starting from scratch.”
The Miners, now 8-4-1, have two remaining regular-season tune-ups at home against Union and Carbon before the first round of the 3A state playoffs begin.
Caro reiterated that his team has potential, but clearly isn’t the best team in Region 10 this season.
“Wasatch, I have to give credit to them. They wanted it,” he said. “They came with intensity and they knew they had to step up from the last game. I think the last game, things were very, very even. This game, they played us and were much better. They showed today that they were the better team in the region.”