Girls’ soccer: Davis High’s Mikayla Colohan named 2015 Tribune MVP – Salt Lake Tribune

While Colohan scored the only goal in the Darts’ 1-0 win over Weber in the state title game, most of the time she was setting up her team’s goal-scorers with assists.

Davis coach Soulyvanh Phongsavath, who has coached Colohan since she was 10, said that everything his team did ran through her.

“Early on, it was pretty evident how talented she was,” he said. “My job as a coach was not to screw up with her. She was going to be talented and successful regardless of who the coach was. The goal was to get the most out of all the talent she has.”

Phongsavath praised Colohan’s great vision on the field as well as her unselfishness.

“Her ability to distribute is why she is so valuable to us,” he said. “She is able to put the ball wherever she wants it. I have worked with her to vary her distribution. She can go through, over the top, flock or chip. … She finds different ways to beat you. She is able to beat by scoring with her shot. She showed a whole range of skills in the final.”

Colohan’s unselfishness is revealed by her 37 assists during the season, in addition to 14 goals. That accounted for nearly half of Davis’ scores. She also helped the Darts give up only eight goals all season.

“Mikayla would rather have an assist than a goal any day,” said the Dart coach. “She takes joy in giving a great pass and seeing somebody else score. She has learned to balance between giving the ball away and when she can take it. An attacking midfielder is like a point guard.”

Colohan began playing the sport when she was 4, largely because that’s what all her friends were doing. When she moved to her first competition team, she began getting hooked on the sport.

Though she has no trouble maintaining a 3.95 grade point average, most of her free time revolves around soccer. During the season, she practices with her high school teams for about 90 minutes every day, plays two games a week, and joins her La Roca club team for another three practices a week.

Soccer has given Colohan a chance to travel around the country.

“My most memorable trip was to the nationals in Oklahoma,” she said. “That might not be the best place to be, but, for the soccer experience, it was the best and the coolest. We were playing the best teams in the country. There were a lot of people from the U.S. team watching you.”

She hopes to one day get an invite to a national team camp. She took a trip to Florida during Thanksgiving week with her region team, a step below the national team.

“If I do well at this, I could get invited to a national camp,” she said.

Colohan said she is enjoying a sports psychology class at Davis because it relates well to everything she does at soccer. She could picture herself majoring in psychology or becoming an athletic trainer.

She said she used to play basketball and golf with her family, but now her full attention is on soccer.