After another year of record-setting play, senior Emma Broadbent was named the 2025 3A Player of the Year in a statewide poll of coaches. Her team’s coach, Matt Mapstone, was similarly lauded as the 3A Region 13 Coach of the Year by the Utah Girls Basketball Coaches Association.
Broadbent got her start in basketball very young, following in her two older brother's footsteps who played a variety of sports.
“First I was into gymnastics, and then after gymnastics practice, I would always go home and play basketball out in the backyard with my brothers, and I just fell in love with it there,” she said.
Broadbent is also a standout in volleyball and softball at South Summit, but it’s on the basketball court where she has really shined.
She leaped into the record books last year, setting the state record for most rebounds in a season: 436. She broke that record again this season with 549 rebounds.
This year she also broke a nearly three-decades-old record for most career rebounds. Mackenzie Gillins held the previous record with 1,464 career rebounds from 1992 to 1996. Broadbent surpassed that with 1,575 career rebounds.
This year, she also ranks No. 4 in Utah for total points scored and fifth for points per game. In the 3A Division, she ranks first in points per game and rebounds per game and third for blocks per game.
Overall in her basketball career, Broadbent has scored a total of 1,750 points, 125 assists, 146 steals and 187 blocks.
Mapstone said players like Broadbent don’t come along very often.
“We even talked about as coaches, the best way to get Emma the ball is just shoot it so she can go get a rebound and score,” he said. “We never really did that on purpose but, but she's been, I mean, she's a once-in-a-generation player.”
During the 2024-25 season, Broadbent helped her team get to the state tournament for the first time since South Summit’s team joined the 3A division. Mapstone said when he first started coaching the girls three years ago, they had a 3-18 record. This year the team went to the state semi-finals, finishing in fourth place.
“These guys are the reason we're so good,” Mapstone said. “The senior group that's leaving just did the work and I mean, produced a huge improvement over the last three years.”
A coach of 28 years, Mapstone said he was honored to be recognized by his peers as this year’s top 3A Region 13 coach. Still, he said he’s only as good as the people around him; he thanked his two assistant coaches for their support.
Broadbent said Mapstone is a great coach.
“You definitely can, like, feel his love for the game and feel his love for, like, me and my teammates, and just like through drills and running us. I mean it definitely makes us better,” she said.
Mapstone grew up in Park City and played in high school and later in college. Once he got older, though, he pivoted to coaching.
“If you want to stay with the game that you love, you start coaching,” Mapstone said.
He and his wife moved away from Park City to care for his mom. But Mapstone said he eventually felt the itch to coach again. The job at South Summit opened up, and he and his wife made their way back to the Wasatch Back.
Mapstone said it’s been an honor to coach the South Summit girls.
“I'm more proud of this team than I am of any team that I've ever coached, so it's just been a joy. I'm gonna miss them a lot,” he said.
As for Broadbent, she plans to attend Southern Virginia University — but to play volleyball. Her official visit to the school was for basketball, but she also spoke with the volleyball coach.
After the visit, Broadbent said she knew the volleyball team was where she needed to be.
