After fighting their way back to the Championship game, the Lady Spartan softball squad faced Grantsville once more in the battle for the state title. If they wanted to be crowned champs they had to beat the Cowboys twice, but fell short in the first game 11-8.

Grantsville was the team that handed Emery their first loss of the tournament, sending them to the one-loss bracket where they would have to face the North Sanpete Hawks, and after securing the 4-3 victory, they would move on to the Grantsville Cowboys again.

Emery got things going in the bottom of the second when Katelyn Nielson sent one over the center field wall for a solo shot to give the Spartans a 1-0 lead. Later in the same inning, Kalli Jensen earned a walk that sent Kaitlyn Thomas home. Then the next batter up Shannon Johnson came up to bat and Elli Stilson scored on an error by the catcher, later in the at-bat, Tailynn Minchey scored on a steal of home to put the score at 4-0.  In the third, Emery added one more after a sacrifice fly by Rheagan Rhoten that brought in Brooklynn Ekker increasing the Emery lead to 5-1.

Grantsville had regained the lead by the bottom of the sixth 6-5, Minchey smacked a grounder to the shortstop that drove in Madi Bunnell to tie the score at 6-6, and that would be a recurring theme for the remainder of the game. With both teams going scoreless in the seventh extra innings were necessary. In the eighth each team would score one run to tie things at 7-7, then in the top of the ninth the Cowboys got to Emery pitching, putting four runs on the board, the Lady Spartans were able to get one run on the back in the bottom but it wasn’t enough and Granstville closed out Emery as they won their sixth state title in seven years, 11-8.

Bunnell, Ekker, and Nielson had one hit and scored one run, with Bunnell and Nielson adding an RBI each as well for the Spartans. Alexis Ungerman collected two hits in the loss.

Rhoten got the start for Emery going 6.1 innings giving up 11 hits, nine runs, seven earned, and striking out two. Kalle Lake closed things out going 2.2 giving up four hits and one earned run.

The Lady Spartans ended the season at 22-8 and held the No. 1 spot in the final RPI.

Tune into KOAL’s Drive Time Sports in the coming weeks for the complete wrap-up of the 2024 season.