All-Area TOTY: Ogden reaches new summit with program’s eighth title
Tigers are the 2025 All-Area Girls Soccer Team of the Year
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- Ogden players celebrate after winning the 3A state championship game against Manti on Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025, at America First Field in Sandy.
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- Ogden High players celebrate after senior Megan Beus (second from left) scored a goal off a pass from junior Elle Weston (far right) in the 3A girls soccer state championship match on Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025, at America First Field in Sandy.
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- Ogden’s Megan Beus, center, celebrates a goal during the 3A state girls soccer playoffs on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, at the Spence Eccles Ogden Community Sports Complex in Ogden.
OGDEN — Almost anyone around Ogden High will tell you the stakes are bumped a little higher when it comes to soccer.
The school’s girls soccer program has kept that bar especially high.
Now two seasons in with their new head coach, Ogden and Alexis King achieved their first 3A state title together (eighth all-time), defeating Manti 5-1 in October after coming up short to rival Morgan a year ago.
The Tigers are the 2025 All-Area Girls Soccer Team of the Year.
Finishing 17-2 overall, Ogden cleaned up region-wise with a perfect 8-0 run (including a 4-0 sweep of the Trojans and Ben Lomond) to slot themselves No. 1 seed in the 3A playoffs.
“I feel like they took it a little more to heart,” King said of her team. “Last year, we were a really good team, and we didn’t win. That was really hard because we all felt like we could do it, and didn’t. I think they really took that to heart and ran with it.”
King, a former player herself at William Woods, a NAIA school in central Missouri, officially took over for former Ogden coach Ryan Robinson (who won two titles with the Tigers in 2021 and 2023) in 2024, a year that came awfully close to that eighth banner.
Ultimately, an Ogden team led by last year’s All-Area Player of the Year Kate Pulley, now a freshman forward at Division III Colorado College, fell prey to No. 4 Morgan 2-1 as the No. 6 seed a year ago.
Capping the nonregion slate at 6-2, Ogden walked into Morgan 313 days removed from their runner-up finish and mercy-ruled the Trojans on their own pitch. The win was especially memorable, with senior Megan Beus and junior Elle Weston each recording a hat trick in the process.
“I know our whole team was very excited,” King said. “I didn’t even expect that to happen. Around that timeframe, the end of the preseason, the very beginning of region (play) is when I was like, ‘OK, we got a team.'”
Partially absent in 2024 due to a hamstring injury, Weston returned in a big way for Ogden’s state title run.
Weston broke the school’s single-season scoring record (previously held by Pulley with 35 goals) against Morgan in nearly another shutout, 8-1, en route to the state finals in Sandy.
Weston tallied a team-high 42 goals (91 total points) on the season, but chasing down the school record didn’t come without some restlessness. A frustrated Weston once turned to King for direction during a regular-season match against Ben Lomond in September.
“I remember Alexis pulling me to the side and being like ‘Hey, just focus on other things,'” Weston said. “Focus on passing, and it will come as you play. Don’t focus on that,’ and that really helped me.”
Even with plenty of boot up front, Ogden finished the year with 15 different scorers ranging all ages. Freshman Gwenyth Aardema posted the team’s third-most goals with 10, a step beneath Beus (14 goals, 4o points).
Four Tigers — Weston (2), Beus (1), Aardema (1), and senior Capril Colvin (1) — each found the net against Manti. The lone Templar’s goal, scored by Chloe Olson, represented the final of just three goals allowed by freshman goalkeeper Whitney Fife during the postseason.
A variety of ages and experiences didn’t hold Ogden back, Beus said.
“I think about our senior class and how everyone had a different role,” Beus said. “Everyone found their role and put their full heart into it.”
One of Ogden’s four seniors, Beus came to understand the expectations around her school’s soccer team and how it feels to hit the ceiling of her second career state title.
“We put in the work to be there,” Beus said. “I felt that there was an expectation, (and) we’re very happy that we ended up in this position.”
The Tigers have appeared in seven consecutive state title matches dating back to 2019, when Ogden was still competing in 4A.
But Ogden’s never won consecutive titles in all those visits to the dance, and that task is on the shoulders of the next brigade.
“Obviously, I think that would be the big goal,” Weston said. “But also, to just make the most of it because this year was really hard for us juniors, just looking at the seniors and being like ‘Oh my gosh, next year we’re done.’ I think that was really eye-opening.”
Connect with prep sports reporter Conner Becker via email at cbecker@standard.net and X @ctbecker.
