By Laurie Maddox
WSL Special Correspondent

PARK CITY, Utah – Park City’s Matt Mersereau fits midway on the continuum between dazzling offense and suffocating defense – a complete midfielder more workman than showman, more hustle than flow.

The senior co-captain was a finalist for All-American and National Senior Showcase honors, but not a recipient. He racked up a game-high six points in this year’s state championship game, even as Park City fell, 10-7, to Brighton to finish 12-4 on the season.

At 5-foot-9, 165 pounds, Mersereau was not the biggest or strongest in the lacrosse class of 2010. But he played as if he was.

No one loomed larger in the championship game than Mersereau, who took Park City higher and farther than any Miners’ team has gone before, piling a virtuoso final performance on top of an exceptional regular season.

Not many players regularly dominated face-offs as Mersereau did for three years, winning 116-of-174 draws, or 67 percent as a senior, with win percentages of 65 and 68 his junior and sophomore years.

And as former Miners’ head coach Ryan Sheaffer describes it, few, if any other players could play the entire field the way Mersereau could, winning possessions and racking up 35 goals and 25 assists this year on the offensive end, while leading Park City in takeaways, ground balls, hits and short-stick defense everywhere else.

His ability to play all phases of the game and command every Miners’ charge, never more on display than in the championship, is the reason Mersereau is WSL’s 2010 Utah Boys Player of the Year.

“When you put everything together he was awesome, and nobody certainly in the state of Utah this year represented the complete package as he did,” said Sheaffer, who moved to Philadelphia at the end of the season, capping nine years with Park City, four as head coach.

“I’ve never come across a harder-working player than him. He was on the field as a midfielder probably 85-90 percent of the time. There were games where you couldn’t get him to come off.”

That included Park City’s only losses during the regular season – a 6-5 defeat to Alta, a 12-9 loss against state-champion Brighton and an 11-10 squeaker vs. Waterford.

In the rematch for the title with the undefeated Bengals, Mersereau demonstrated what Sheaffer had seen him do many times throughout his career – take over.

After Brighton took a 1-0 lead at the end of the first quarter, Mersereau fired off four goals in the second, answering the Bengals’ four goals point for point, to keep Park City within one, 5-4, at halftime. He added two assists in the second half and drove teammates to keep pushing and fighting before the talent and depth of Brighton proved too formidable.

“He single-handedly kept them in the game,” said Waterford head coach Dave Brattin, who is also the area’s U.S. Lacrosse Area Chairman. “Opposing coaches respect him.”

Respect wasn’t always apparent. A week earlier, Mersereau was surprisingly not selected for one of Utah’s four U.S. Lacrosse All-American designations and was passed over for MVP at midfield on the Division I All-State First Team.

“I told Matt, and I believe it in the end, that the recognitions are nice,” Sheaffer said. “But everybody knew in the championship game that he was the best kid on the field that night and maybe the best midfielder in Utah. And he got the chance to prove it.”

Mersereau is satisfied that he summoned his best when the stakes were highest. In a couple weeks, he’ll be digging deep once again. After lifting weights all summer, Mersereau will start fall practice as a freshman with the University of Utah.

“I have to step up huge,” he said, “just get bigger, faster and better.”