Prep year in review

When it came to dominating the sports scene in the southeastern part of the Salt Lake Valley, Brighton High used to reign supreme. From the early 1980s through the mid-'90s, nobody in the state won as many All-Sports awards as the Bengals, who claimed the Deseret Morning News' competition for the best all-around sports school an amazing 13 times between 1980 and '97.

Fast forward to 2005, and it's a little bit different story. The Bengals still finished higher than any of the other big-classification schools in the area — fortunately for them, Juan Diego is a 2A school — but they only managed to place sixth in 5A. Perhaps some consolation for Brighton is that rival Skyline didn't win — Davis High did, a first for a Davis County school.

For the third straight year, Juan Diego Catholic High School in Draper and Waterford High School in Sandy each won the prestigious awards for their respective classifications. None of the other local schools finished in the top five.

Here's a look at how the local 5A schools' sports programs did in the 2004-05 school year:

ALTA (9th, 40 points): In somewhat of a down sports year, successful soccer seasons helped keep the Hawks in the top 10 of the state's largest classification.

BYU-bound Katie Larkin sparked Alta's girls soccer squad physically and emotionally, leading the Hawks to their only team championship of the school year. Larkin topped all classifications in scoring with 34 goals while dishing out 24 assists to become the third MVP in six years from Alta. Her 67 career goals are a school record. Larkin helped the Hawks win despite the team's loss of Katie Fellows to injury and the fact three ambulances visited Alta games or practices during the season.

Larkin wasn't the only talented Alta player, though. Whitney Feller, Alyssa Lowry, Lisa Crump and Karen Cook made first-team all-state.

The boys' attempt to add a second soccer title this year was thwarted in a stunning semifinal loss to rival Jordan, which had been blown out in two previous meetings. Still, Alta netted two underclassmen first-teamers in sophomore Garrett Losee (16 goals) and junior Aaron Weyman (nine shutouts).

In football, the Hawks lost more games than usual, and they also lost their coach when longtime sideline fixture Mitch Lunak was let go. Dave Johnson, a tight end who had 602 yards receiving with four TDs, was the school's sole football first-teamer, and offensive lineman Preston Erickson made the second team.