The Lady Spartan softball team suffered their first region loss this season on Friday when they faced the North Sanpete Hawks in Castle Dale. Neither team made a move until the later innings but North Sanpete came out on top 6-5.

Emery holds a 10-2 overall mark and a 6-1 mark in region play. On Wednesday the Utah High School Activities Association will release the first RPI rankings of the season and we will be able to see how the Spartans stack up against the rest of 3A.

Emery and North Sanpete started slow, the Hawks would take the first lead in the top of the third putting up a pair of runs in the inning. Then in the top of the fifth, they would add four more to push the score to 6-0, and in the bottom of the inning, the Lady Spartans would get on the board.

With the score 6-1, and two outs on the board Kali Jensen stepped up to the plate sending a fly ball to center that would score Shannon Johnson, Rheagan Rhoten, and Katelyn Nielson, to cut the North Sanpete lead to 6-4.

The Lady Spartans added one more run in the bottom of the sixth when Brooklynn Ekker scored on a steal of home pushing the score to 6-5, but that was as close as Emery would get taking the loss.

Jensen collected a couple of hits and three RBIs for the Lady Spartans. Nielson had four hits and a run scored, and Ekker had a trio of hits and scored a pair of runs in the Emery loss.

Rhoten got the start on the mound going 4.2 innings giving up six earned runs on seven hits, Ekker finished out the contest surrendering two hits.

Quiet week for the Lady Spartans with the spring break holiday, as they only have one game this week when they travel to Manti on Friday.