Early success elusive for Park City Red Wolves in opening week
Early success elusive for Park City Red Wolves in opening week
The two-time defending USL League Two Mountain division champions scored just one goal in a pair of draws to start the season, and now face three of the next four on the road.
Repeating can be hard, and following up a successful season even moreso.
That’s where the Park City Red Wolves find themselves after a pair of draws to open Mountain Division play in USL League Two.
The Red Wolves rallied for a 1-1 draw against Colorado International Soccer Academy (CISA) in the club’s home opener Thursday night at Judge Memorial High School, netting a 66th-minute goal from South African native forward Ryan Naidoo to salvage a point at home.
That comes after a scoreless draw to open the season against in-state rival Salt City, presenting the Red Wolves — which are in the middle of a rebrand to Utah Red Wolves — in an unenviable (albeit early) position in the league table.
“I’m not happy about it,” Red Wolves coach Scott Mackenzie said in a team news release. “I think the standard and expectation we’ve set historically, and set coming into the season, is much higher than what’s happened in the first two games. We’ve had the ball start to finish. We’ve had our chances. They never got into our penalty box other than once, their goal.”
The club’s standards are championships, and those championships — a pair of Mountain division titles, specifically — have led to greater moments from the affiliate of USL League One side Chattanooga in the fourth division of U.S. Soccer.
But the Red Wolves’ woes started even before the season, when a trip to UDA Soccer in Las Cruces, New Mexico, for the U.S. Open Cup yielded a scoreless loss, 1-0, with the only goal coming on a late penalty kick.
And it doesn’t get any easier for a group compromised of college standouts and local pathway players, including Park City’s Andrew Hoglin (Saint Mary’s), Park City native Kurt Lehmkuhl (Cornell) and Heber City-born Greyson Mercer (Michigan State), among others.
The team trails Colorado-based Flatirons Rush and Boulder County United, as well as New Mexico United U-23 by one point in the table, though Flatirons Rush has a game in hand after playing just one game during the first week of the season.
“We have to very, very quickly learn our lessons,” Mackenzie said. “If we don’t, it’s just not going to be our season and we’re not going to meet the expectations that we’ve set for ourselves.”
Park City hits the road for three of its next four matches, beginning June 10 at New Mexico United U-23. The Red Wolves will be back home a week later, June 17, to face Salt City at Judge Memorial at 7:30 p.m. MDT.
All home matches are streamed live on Eleven Sports.
