Miners, Morgan to meet for title

DRAPER — Park City's perfect record is still intact, barely.

After 100 minutes of scoreless soccer Friday, the Miners eked out a 4-3 shootout victory over Ogden to advance to Saturday's 3A championship at 6 p.m. at Juan Diego High School. Park City will face Morgan, which beat Bear River 2-0.

"It was another great Park City-Ogden tournament game. We've met in four of the last five tournaments," said Park City coach Mike Guetschow. "We knew it would be a tough game, and it was."

From the opening whistle, it was clear scoring chances would be limited with a pair of outstanding defenses. Entering the game, Park City had a 0.44 goals against average, while Ogden had only surrendered three goals in its last eight games.

Logically, something had to give. On the other hand, there was always the dreaded, yet dramatic, shootout.

Before the game was settled on PKs though — which Park City's Matt Smith figured was inevitable once the game went into overtime — the Miners teased their fans with a pair of ridiculously close goals.

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The first came eight minutes into overtime when Ryan Hart had the ball at his feet a mere inches from the goal but couldn't sneak it past three Ogden defenders who were standing right in front of him.

The second excellent chance came in the final 30 seconds of overtime, but Reid Baker's shot from about 15 yards out dribbled just wide of the post.

"We had our chances today," said Guetschow.

As the fatigued teams prepped for the shootout, Park City assistant coach Greg Gendron declared that keeper Rock Christeson would make two saves. He never had. Or better yet, they were intimidation saves.

Ogden's first kicker sent his PK wide, while Park City's Nick Manookin buried his shot, putting the Miners ahead 1-0. In the second round of kicks, the teams swapped sides. Ogden's Chace Christensen made his shot, while Tigers' keeper Blake Noseworthy punched Park City's shot into the crossbar and out of harm's way.