WEST JORDAN — Cheered on by a fantastic crowd of students, parents and teachers, top-ranked Copper Hills stayed calm and composed to take care of business at home against Bingham and remain perfect on the season at 8-0.
It was the kind of afternoon that Copper Hills coach Michael Shaughnessy envisioned when he took over the lowly Grizzlies' program five years ago. Shaughnessy will be the first to tell you that his team is far from a finished article and that his players must keep winning to prove they are one of the state's elite teams.
However, Shaughnessy has a stable of talented players at his disposal, and the Grizzlies have the look of a team that can be consistently good. That much was evident as Anthony Nixon scored once in each half to give Copper Hills a 2-0 win over Bingham on Tuesday.
"There's stuff happening here," said Shaughnessy. "It's taken some time. It's my fifth year here. We, first of all, learned how to be difficult to beat, and then we've slowly, slowly tried to make it more attractive. It's just exciting."
The community that surrounds Copper Hills High seems to be noticing.
A very solid contingent of students lined Copper Hills' sideline before kickoff arrived on Tuesday, and more and more folks arrived to cheer on the Grizzlies throughout the first half.
"Our crowds have increased," said Shaughnessy. "It wasn't quite like being at Old Trafford, but for us it was. I want them to all be proud of us. I want the teachers (and) the students to be proud of their boys soccer team and be proud of themselves."
Copper Hills came storming out of the gates early on against Bingham and went ahead 1-0 when Nixon managed to shoot through a crowd of bodies and into the net in the 13th minute.
The game turned on its head, though, after that point, and Bingham put the Grizzlies under immense pressure for the rest of the half.
However, Copper Hills stayed composed, didn't concede an equalizer and got going again in the second half. Nixon scored with a phenomenal striker from distance in the 62nd minute, and the Grizzlies took care of business from there.
"(Bingham) showed a bit more urgency, a bit more desire" in the first half, said Shaughnessy. "But I think we stayed with it. We just had to weather the storm. And it wasn't really a storm of relying on luck or good fortune. It was just doing the sensible things."
That enabled Copper Hills to remain the only unbeaten team in 5A. Every squad in the classification has lost at least once this spring except for the Grizzlies, and they deserve plenty of credit for not slipping up.
"It's hard to be consistent and win every game, but they've done that and they've never been behind," said Shaughnessy.
http://www.offtopic.forum/data/MetaMirrorCache/a8a4ca55f2484c09d79555c5786f1551.jpg(Copper Hills' Taylor Ruff grabs the ball above his teammate Oscar Zamudio and Bingham's Garrett Dimick. )
