After a fourth-place finish in both the Region 6 standings and Monday’s region championship, the only thing the Miners can do now is wait to see if they made the state tournament.
The top two teams from every region automatically qualify for the state tournament next week at Spanish Oaks, while the six remaining spots are decided by average team score after adjusting for course difficulty. The Miners are hopeful that they can still qualify, but they will have to wait for an answer.
Park City is in uncharted waters, as the Miners previously reeled off 11 straight state championships between 2008 and 2018. They still finished in the top three each of the last two years, so being on the outside looking in is completely new to the program.
“That kind of territory is new to Park City, to be possibly on the cutline, to make it or not make it,” Park City coach George Murphy said. “But it definitely gives us confidence for next season that a lot of these kids that didn’t get the experience the last year in tournament play that they can do it and hopefully that gets the kids motivated a little bit more to do a lot more tournament play in the summer and create more depth for us down the road.”
The Miners carded a 304 for the day at Riverbend Golf Course, with junior Aiden Taylor leading the way with a 74. Seniors Will Agnew and Gordy Crofts were right behind him with a 75 and a 76, respectively. Sophomore Robby Harman and freshman Lucas Sweeney both scored 79s, though only one counted toward Park City’s score. Agnew finished the year in the top 10 in Region 6 as an individual, so he’ll make the trip to Spanish Oaks regardless of whether or not Park City qualifies.
The Miners’ fourth-place finish was a bit of a comeback from where they were earlier in the season. Struggles midseason dropped Park City as far as sixth place out of the seven teams in Region 6, but the Miners improved greatly down the stretch.
“We’re pretty pleased with where we are,” Murphy said. “We averaged, after that tournament today, kind of sub-310, which, the way we were heading out early in the season, we were like, ‘OK, this could get out of hand if we don’t kind of see a little bit more consistent play out of these guys.’ And they did, they stepped up, they’ve come on pretty strong at the end.”
Some might view a season like this from a program as historically successful as Park City as a disappointment, but Murphy knows how much this season means to all of his golfers. Failing to make states would be a deep cut. For guys like Taylor, Harman and Sweeney, this is only the beginning.
“You have to understand what it feels like to lose and get beat before you make that determination to put more time into it and … become better players all around,” Murphy said. “Sometimes you need to see that and experience that and go through it and kind of determine, ‘Are we going to come out on top of this and use this for our benefit, for our good to get better?’ Or are we just going to be like, ‘OK, we got beat’ and give up? These guys, they didn’t have that in them. They want to go to state.”