Soccer Finishes Region and Prepares for State Tournament

Soccer finished region play on a high after winning the last four games in a tough region. The boys finished second with four of the top ten teams in 5A.

Lehi, Orem, Timpanogos, and Alta are all of the teams in 5A which is the most of any region in the state. Alta beat Orem by three goals in the last week of region play but it wasn’t quite enough to win the region. 

“It’s a bummer we didn’t win the region because we want to win everything,” Caleb Lowry said. “In the big picture it doesn’t matter because we can still go out and win a State Championship.”

Alta secured the third seed going into the playoffs just behind Wasatch and Orem. This puts them in a good position to win two consecutive state championships. 

Coach Kenzie Hyer explains, “Winning back to back will be difficult but we are taking it one game at a time.”

Alta will play Brighton in the second round of playoffs on May 16th. This will occur after earning a first round bye. Brighton advanced into the second round after a five goal win against Tooele in the first round. 

“I wanted to play Brighton,” Tanner Kunz said. “We played them last year and it was a really intense game.”

Last year’s quarterfinals between Alta and Brighton ended in a thrilling overtime win for the hawks. The game went back and forth but Alta pulled it out in the end. 

The score ended up 4-1. Brock Bennion scored all four goals.

Last week Alta slipped past Murray with a score of 1-0. They are set to play Olympus today. If they are victorious, they will move on to the final game Thursday afternoon.

Alta hopes to win its tenth state championship in program history. This would be the most of any team in the state of Utah. 

Hyer stated, “If we work together as a team and score the points, we can lead out to victory!”