After a wild day at the 3A state tournament, Grantsville’s bid for a three-peat is still very much alive.
After rallying from seven runs down to beat Emery in its first game on Friday, Grantsville dominated its second game against Morgan to advance to Saturday’s 3A state championship at 12:30 p.m. at Spanish Fork Sports Park.
Grantsville will play the winner of the Emery-Morgan elimination game at 10 a.m.
The second game felt like a walk in the park after the wild ride against No. 4 seed Emery. Emery scored six runs in the second inning to chase starting pitcher Payten Bytheway, and then tacked on another run in the third to build a 7-0 lead.
Emery left the bases loaded in the third with a chance to open up an even bigger lead.
Grantsville coach Tony Cloward called it the worst softball of the season from his team.
“We didn’t start off very good. In fact we played some of the worst softball of the season and you can’t give a good team like Emery a seven-run lead,” said Cloward.
The Cowboys slowly chipped away at Emery’s lead though, cutting it to 7-2 after four innings and then 8-4 after six. In the seventh, they plated seven runs for the huge comeback win.
“It was great resilience by our girls. They really all season have had a never quit attitude. This was the third come from behind victory we’ve had this season. The girls have shown real grit and determination all season,” said Cloward.
Hayden Bytheway went 2 for 2 with three RBIs to lead the way offensively, and she also came on in relief after a rocky start from Grantsville’s first two pitchers. She pitched 4 2/3 innings with five strikeouts and only allowed one hit.
Bytheway got the starting nod against Morgan in the 3A semifinal a few hours later, and even though she gave up more runs than the earlier game, she got a ton of run support.
Grantsville pounded out 11 runs and 11 hits, with Hayden Bytheway adding two of those hits with a game-high three RBIs.
“Against Morgan it’s a region rival. We’ve seen each other twice and both games have been very close contests,” said Cloward. “We know each other so well that it was just a matter of who was going to be able to execute. I thought that we were very good and focused on executing our game plan against Morgan.
“We were able to force them to use multiple pitchers in order to try to control our offense. We were able to stick with our ace Hayden Bytheway who threw the complete game in the circle. It was a great overall win. A lot of people contributed to the win.”