Cottonwood girls basketball enters a new region with hope
Feb 07, 2022 03:19PM ● By Brian Shaw
Ali Tripp looks to find a pass against Tooele. (Travis Barton/City Journals)
By Brian Shaw | [email protected]
Off to the best start in several years, the Cottonwood Colts girls basketball team has big plans now that they’re in the new Region 7.
This is a moment that Cottonwood athletic director Greg Southwick said two months ago that he’s been waiting for. “Our girls program has been taking a huge step forward,” he said this past summer. “We’re competing. That’s the ultimate goal.”
According to Southwick, this is the time when the Colts get to showcase a squad laden with veteran leadership and a head coach in Tess Soracco who started at Cottonwood as an assistant several years ago and is now growing into the top position with the girls under her wing.
Led by senior captain Ali Tripp whose 17 points-per-game not only leads the Colts in scoring, but is also one of the best scoring averages in all of Class 5A basketball.
Tripp also helped the volleyball team to a state tournament play-in game.
So far the Colts have already had as many wins [four] in 2021-22 as they have had over the past two years combined.
The Colts started the season with a win over Taylorsville in late November. Following two tough losses to close out the month they picked up their second victory of the year, over Park City on Dec. 9.
Two more preseason losses followed before the Colts got their third win of the season on Dec. 27 over Summit Academy. They then picked up win No. 4, equaling last season’s entire win total, on Jan. 5 in a 56-45 win at West to close out their preseason.
As Cottonwood [4-7 overall] begins its slate of league games in the new Region 7, it has already been showing progress in its first two games. At Uintah the Colts were down by just two points going into the fourth quarter but ended up losing 48-54. At home to Stansbury the Colts galloped out to a 13-point halftime lead. But a 42-point second half by the visitors that included 24 in the fourth dealt the Colts a 51-58 defeat, their second region loss in as many tries.
At press time the Colts have eight games left to play after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday break, but all accounts appear to back up that the program has been making the necessary improvements that Southwick alluded to a few months ago.
