ST. GEORGE — First-year head coach Connor Brown was happy that his Snow Canyon Warriors earned the third seed in the upcoming 4A girls state soccer tournament.
“It’s a great place to be and hopefully everything will work out in the end,” he told St. George News after the Utah High School Athletics Association released the 4A tournament pairings Friday afternoon.
Snow Canyon won Region 10 with a record of 10-2 and finished the regular season 12-4 overall.
“I inherited a really really good team,” Brown said. “Even in the first couple of weeks over summer watching them I was blown away by the talent we have.”
He added that coaches made it their aim to get the best out of the Warriors and create an atmosphere where they love to play and are happy to be at Snow Canyon.
“We focused on culture early on, encourage and lift each other mentally off and on the field,” Brown said. “We wanted to make them tactically dynamic and they did what we asked them to do. It’s just an awesome group and I’m really happy they got what they deserved.”
Ashlee Harris leads the Warriors with 15 goals this season. Lilly Wittwer is right behind her with 12 goals and Jolee Irvin has eight markers.
Wittwer and Millie Warner each lead the Warriors with nine assists while Irvin posted five helpers. Freshman goalkeeper Tori Martin posted 20 saves and four shutouts for the region champs.
With a first-round bye and if the seeds work out as expected, the Warriors will host region rival Cedar (8-4 Region 10, 11-5 overall) Oct. 15 at Snow Canyon in a quarterfinal matchup.
“Cedar is a phenomenal team with a couple of really dangerous attacking players, and they’re set up well defensively,” Brown said. “Going into the playoffs our mindset has to be, anything can happen. They beat us in Cedar this year and they’ll be hungry to play us again.”
Region 11 teams Mountain Crest (14-3, unbeaten in region) and Ridgeline (14-3) earned the top two seeds, respectively, in the 4A tournament and have byes in the first round.
Crimson Cliffs (8-9 overall, 7-5 Region 10) earned the No. 8 seed and opens the 4A tournament Wednesday at 4 p.m. at home against No. 9 seed Logan (4-13).
Pine View, meanwhile, is the No. 13 seed and will play at No. 4 Green Canyon (11-6) on Wednesday. The Panthers finished with one Region 10 win and were 2-13 overall.
No. 5 Desert Hills will play in the first round as well. The Thunder finished second in Region 10 at 9-3 and 12-5 overall.
Region 10 rival and No. 12 Hurricane (3-9 region, 4-11 overall) will travel to Desert Hills Wednesday at 4 p.m.
The final two first-round matchups on Wednesday are Dixie (4-13) at Sky View (8-8) and No. 11 Bear River (3-13) at No. 6 Cedar.
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