Last year, Brighton Athletics was ranked in the top four of all 29 5A schools in the Deseret News High School Sports Awards rankings. Brighton is no stranger in these ranks—the school’s athletic programs held the No. 1 position for a record 12 years straight from 1980 to 1992. But as the sports have diversified (multiple new sports added) and the competition grows, Brighton seems to be consistently ranked in the top five. Last year, Brighton boys athletics was the second most prolific in all of 5A in terms of winning state championships and placing in the top 10 at state tournaments. 

This year, after strong finishes in both the fall and the winter sports season, and with the promise of strong spring finishes in baseball and lacrosse, Brighton is poised to move up in the all sports ranking. 

Girls Basketball

Brighton girls basketball ended the season in the top 10 with great promise to move up even further next year. Three players received postseason honors. 

Sophie Nielsen was selected second team All State and first team All Region. Charlotte O’Neal was selected second team All Region. Lucy Chin was selected second team All Region and All Star team. 

Sophie Nielsen, in just her third year hit a career mark of 1000 points. “Sophie is an amazing competitor and a dedicated student athlete” said Principal Marielle Rawle. “We look forward to what the next year will bring!”

Boys basketball

This was a senior-rich year for boys basketball when the experience of the years paid off. The Bengals entered the state championship tournament seeded ninth, meaning the team barely missed the coveted first-round bye. Undaunted the team defied the odds, pulling off the tournament’s biggest upset over top seed Orem and landing in the semifinals.  

“We were led by our six seniors all season long in Josh Mawhinney, Bradley Easton, Jaxon Soto, Case Beames, Creighton Evers and Carson Janke,”  said head coach Tim Gardner. “Our league is great and you better be ready to play every night.  This prepared us for postseason play and allowed us to be playing our best basketball in February. Our toughness and togetherness was in full effect as we upset the No. 1 team in the state in Orem at the Huntsman Center. Great support from our student body and community.”

Mawhinny and Creighton Evers were both Academic All State. Mawhinney and Easton are Deseret News All State as well as All Region. Jaxon Soto was honorable mention All Region. The boys basketball achieved a top four state finish. 

Wrestling

Brighton wrestling fields two varsity teams for UHSAA 5A competition in boys wrestling and girls wrestling. A wrestler’s goal is to qualify as a state wrestler sometime in the four years of wrestling eligibility. The top eight wrestlers in each weight class who emerge from Divisional tournaments are designated as state wrestlers and then move on to compete in the mid-February state tournament for a state championship. The 2024-2025 campaign qualified a decade-record 14 wrestlers (including the entire girls wrestling team) for state while Brighton boys wrestling earned eighth place. 

Mei Mei Engebretsen, a junior at 120 pounds took the next step by becoming a 2025 state finalist placing second. She took third in 2024. Landon Hill, a multi-sport junior at 144 pounds took third place. Fernando Cortez, a junior at 190 pounds took sixth place. Manoa Herb, a junior foreign exchange student from Germany took sixth place at 170 pounds. 

"Wrestling is one of the greatest sports of all time,” Engebretsen said. “Not just because it’s a hard sport, but because everything you learn on the mat you can apply to your life off the mat. I have a sense of pride knowing that I was able to represent Brighton in my finals match and be the first girls finalist. I love my team and am so grateful for my coaches. Since the high school season has ended, I have been training with the Brighton club team and traveling to new places so I can have more mat time before my final year where I would like to become state champ.”

Volleyball

Brighton’s newest UHSAA-sanctioned sport is boys volleyball. While girls volleyball has long been a staple of the high school sports offerings, boys volleyball, like hockey, rugby and water polo was a club sport. The nascent program is growing at Brighton under the guiding hand of veteran coach Mondo Begay the team finished the winter season ranked 12th in Utah 5A. 

Cheer

The cheer squad and competitive team is coached by Taylor Ekstrom. While the cheerleaders support all sports at Brighton throughout the year, their competitive season is during the winter. The season highlights included qualifying for state in all three competitive routine areas. The team continued to nationals where the team turned in its best performances of the season finishing with fifth place among the 28-team national cohort. 

“This year we chose to attend USA nationals in California for the first time in a few years. Our goal was to qualify for day two and after hitting a perfect routine on day one we couldn’t wait to see what place we were in. We ended up going into finals in sixth place, hit another perfect routine, and moved up to fifth place in our division,” Ekstrom said.

Swimming

Nationally recognized Coach Todd Etherington, a Brighton alumnus, produced record-breaking swim results yet again this winter season. Etherington coached both the girls and boys swim teams.

“Our swimmers are amazing...not just in the water, but out of the water as well. Amazing students, amazing friends, amazing teammates. This team wanted all of those around them to be the best that they possibly could and it showed throughout the season. Looking at what we accomplished during the year and not just at the state meet, this group was tremendous and I couldn't be more proud of who they are, what they accomplished and what they learned about being the best versions of themselves and how to become even better. I look forward to see what they become in the years to come,” the normally taciturn Etherington said. 

Both teams finished in the top 10 at the state championship tournament at BYU. The boys team took fourth in state in 2025 after a second place finishes the last two years. The girls team finished 10th in 2025 after a fifth place finish in 2024. 

The individual swimmers were headlined by junior Luan Barnard the new 200 freestyle state champion who set a new 5A state record. After he repeated the record-breaking feat in the 100 backstroke to become a second state champion (a 5A and overall state record at 48.53 seconds) he said, “It feels amazing to come out here and swim my best - exactly what I have been doing in practice all these years.”

“Luan is one of those rare athletes that is willing to always find a way to work harder, smarter, faster, stronger, whatever it takes to be the best version of himself that he can be,” said Etherington. “Everything that he has experienced in the sport of swimming has been used as a learning experience to improve upon what he is already doing.”

Another individual, Etherington’s own son, Dylan Etherington, became the Unified 50 and 100 Freestyle State Champion. 

Other individuals claiming hardware at the state tournament include:

Boys 200 Medley Relay (Luan Barnard, Thomas Powers, Benjamin Schiffman, Drake Doyle) second place with a new team record

Drake Doyle: 100 freestyle second place, 100 breaststroke third place with a new team record

Benjamin Schiffman: sixth place 200 IM, sixth place 500 freestyle

Girls 200 Freestyle Relay (Simone Turcotte, Evie Powers, Jennifer Labuschagne, Aoibheann Bradley) eighth place

Thomas Powers: sixth place 100 breaststroke

Boys 400 Freestyle Relay (Luan Barnard, Benjamin Schiffman, Thomas Powers, Drake Doyle) third place λ