There’s no better way to truly describe the postseason run that Spanish Fork had than “unfathomable.”

In April, if you were looking for the top contenders to win the 5A state baseball tournament you would’ve likely looked at teams such as Brighton or defending 5A champion Maple Mountain.

But it turns out the actual 2025 5A champion was where nobody expected - all the way down at the 20 seed with a 9-16 regular season record.

Even after making a Cinderella run all the way to the championship series, victory was still unlikely after Spanish Fork dropped the first game to top-seeded Brighton 6-3 on Friday.

But the Dons’ entire playoff run has been unlikely, so their 7-3 and 7-4 victories over Brighton in Saturday’s double-header almost felt like destiny.

“I can’t even can’t even put into words how good this feels,” said Spanish Fork head coach Hadley Thorpe. “So proud of all the boys (and) the coaches.

“It took all 33 of us. That’s what our motto all year long was, ’33 against the world.’ It feels so awesome, I can’t even put (it) into words.”

Game 2 of the championship series early Saturday was tied 3-3 through seven innings. Spanish Fork was first to score its three runs with RBIs from Nixon Warren, Pratt Morley and Trigg Cloward, but Brighton responded and forced extra innings.

The Bengals’ nerves got the best of them though as crucial errors allowed the Dons to score three runs in the eighth inning. Two runs scored on an overthrow to third base and one scored on a wild pitch.

Another RBI from Morley sealed the deal on the 7-3 win.

However, in the winner-takes-all Game 3, the offense was there on both sides from the start.

Brighton opened the game with a three-run first inning, but Spanish Fork immediately responded with four runs of its own and from there, the Dons slowly separated from the Bengals.

First Spanish Fork extended its lead in the fourth inning with two more RBIs from Cloward. Despite being a freshman, Cloward was a significant contributor for the Dons.

“We just played like we were young,” Cloward said. “We were just having fun and it led to success.We just play for the love of the game. That’s just what we’re about.”

The Dons have only four seniors on its roster, but they have an important senior leader in Jackie Sorenson, who delivered a single in the first inning which got two runs and stepped up on the mound in the sixth inning to help finish off the game for Spanish Fork.

“We have a lot of young talent, but I knew we could do it,” Sorenson said. “A lot of our guys played last year and showed a lot of promise last year so we knew that if we came ready to play every single day, we’d get it done.

“I’ve been trying to push these guys from the beginning of the season and we all finally kind of just bought in and just took charge.”

Brighton managed to pull within 7-4 with an RBI single in the fifth inning from River Schmidt, but Spanish Fork’s defense did not allow a single base hit in the last two innings.

As Sorenson threw the final pitch, which resulted in a pop out, the entire Spanish Fork dugout stormed the mound and piled on him.

“We talked (before the state tournament) and said, ‘Why not us? There’s no reason that we shouldn’t,’” Sorenson said. ”We just had to get hot at the right moment.

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“We came off a good senior night win, so we knew going into it that we were going to get the job done. It was just one of those things where everybody just believed in each other.”

Since RPI-based seeding started five years ago, Spanish Fork is the lowest seed to win a 5A state championship. The Dons entered the state tournament with a record well below .500, but the Game 3 win in the championship series put them above .500 with a final record of 18-17.

“What’s a better way to put us one game over .500 than to win the state championship and hoist that trophy?” Thorpe said. “We took our lumps early on and I kept telling the boys, ‘Put ourselves in chances, places to win games,’ and then we just kept putting ourselves in those chances.

“We lost some tough games early on but just keep putting ourselves in spots to win games and we started winning towards the end.”

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