High school softball: Top two seeds Spanish Fork, Springville book their places into 5A state championship series

Over the past four 5A softball state tournaments, no team has been closer to advancing to the final series of the season without actually doing so than Springville.

The Red Devils can finally turn the page on all those near misses.

No. 2 Springville rallied past No. 3 Bountiful 10-7 on Wednesday at the Valley Regional Complex in Taylorsville to book its spot in the 5A state championship series against top-ranked Spanish Fork, which beat No. 4 seed Box Elder 4-1.

Both teams avoided the “if necessary” game, which gives all the players that extra rest ahead of Friday’s Game 1 in the best-of-three championship series at BYU at 4 p.m.

For Spanish Fork, regardless of the state tournament format, this season represents the ninth straight time the program has played in the state championship. For Springville, it finally gets that experience.

“Every year they’ve really believed they could do it and they just haven’t been able to get over the hump. We’ve been inches in so many different games in five-six years. They’re so excited, truly,” said Springville coach Jill Thackeray.

While Spanish Fork was always firmly in control of its win over Box Elder, Springville definitely was not.

On Tuesday Springville beat Bountiful 8-5 to stay in the winners bracket, but in the rematch a day later, Bountiful jumped out fast, building a quick 3-0 lead as Athena Tongaonevai belted a two-run homer.

Springville got its bats going in the fourth inning, scoring three times to make it a 4-4 game, but Bountiful responded in the top of the fifth with three more runs to take a 7-4 lead.

“We were just so flat in the first four innings, we were so tight and playing not to lose instead of playing to win. And we made some uncharacteristic errors that we really haven’t made all year,” said Thackeray.

Despite the deficit, Thackeray told her players to remain patient at the plate because Bountiful ace Ella Miller was pitching her fourth game in days. Sure enough, the sixth inning Springville started to string some hits together and put up a six spot to take a 10-7 lead into the seventh inning.

Springville starter Ryann Haveron got the key outs in the seventh to book Springville’s spot in the championship series. The Red Devils have never won a softball state championship.

Spanish Fork, meanwhile, has won nine state championships and all since 2000. The Dons’ big test during 5A bracket play came on Tuesday as they trailed 9-5 going into the bottom of the seventh inning before rallying for the 10-9 win.

Spanish Fork coach Natalie Jarvis said pitcher Lucy Evans struggled against Box Elder on her second game of the day, but on Wednesday came out refocused and threw much harder than the previous day.

“Today I think she had one mindset, and it was one game and that was kind of what we were thinking, so she went out and threw a really good game today,” said Jarvis.

She reminded the senior Evans that she’d backed up ace Avery Sapp for the past three years and this was her moment to shine. She delivered with a strong performance, striking out five. Alyce Archuleta drove in two key runs for Spanish Fork in the win.

Spanish Fork swept the season series against Springville, winning 4-3 in the first matchup and then 15-4 in the second. Spanish Fork was won 16 straight games against Springville dating back to 2015, and if it can make 18 straight, it will sweep the 5A championship series and claim the 10th softball state title in school history.