High school softball: Red-hot Enterprise sweeps San Juan, wins its 5th 2A title in the past 8 seasons

The math was pretty simple for Enterprise after scoring just one run in a 2A quarterfinal loss to South Sevier on Thursday afternoon.

The Wolves’ only hope of a state championship from that point forward was winning seven straight games over three days, something they hadn’t done all year.

Despite the long odds, coach Katye Jones believed her team was capable of such a streak. First, she’d seen her players hit all season and knew they were cable of a bounce back, and secondly her young team likely was due to have a game like that.

“I think the first game, our nerves got the best of us. Most of them haven’t played in a key role in a state tournament,” said Jones, who after that game stressed with the team the need to be more disciplined in all facets of the game.

The message resonated, because Enterprise’s bats came alive after that.

The Wolves won their next two games Thursday, three more on Friday by scoring double-digit runs in each game and then beat San Juan twice on Saturday at BYU’s Gail Miller Field to win the 2A state championship despite the unlikely odds.

Senior leader Mylee Platt said everything changed after that 9-1 quarterfinal loss to South Sevier.

“It lit a fire underneath us and we knew we had to work hard, so every at-bat we’re like ‘We got it, we got it, we got it,’ and we just encouraged each other,” said Platt.

Enterprise arrived at BYU on Saturday knowing it needed to beat top seed San Juan twice to win the championship, which was no small task, as the Broncos were the only undefeated team left in the double-elimination tournament.

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For the Wolves, they never trailed in 14 innings against San Juan. They won the first game 11-6 thanks to an eight-spot in the decisive sixth inning. Then in the second game, they jumped out quick with two runs in the top of the first inning and never trailed en route to a 7-4 win.

During the seven-game winning streak that led Enterprise to its third state title in the past four years, the approaches in the batter’s box were the best they were all year.

“We talked about when you go up in the box, have the right mindset, and they just have done that for the last probably, I don’t know, mid-April they started doing that, just a different frame of mind when they stepped in the box and just knew that they could hit it rather than afraid of what the pitcher’s going to throw them,” said Jones.

In two of Enterprise’s wins on Friday to advance to the championship game, it had to rally late to beat both Duchesne and South Sevier.

Every inning was due or die on Friday, which actually helped calm the players’ nerves in the tense championship game setting at BYU a day later.

In Game 1, Enterprise led 3-1 heading into the fifth inning, but it brought 12 batters to the plate that inning, with Macee Staheli, Platt, Taryne Rupp and Lauren Ramos all delivering big base hits in the eight-run frame to put the game away.

After the game, while Enterprise awaited the outcome of the second 1A championship game, the team grabbed an early dinner at Raising Cane’s, their go-to spot when playing up north.

The energy and camaraderie was palpable as everyone could sense the end goal wasn’t far away, and they knew what it would take to get one more win.

“Our theme was ‘Family: Forget About Me I Love You,’ and that’s what they’ve done. They all forgot about themselves and they all fought for each other. It wasn’t just about themselves,” Jones said.

Enterprise jumped out quick in the second game with two runs in the top of the first inning as it took advantage of a pair of errors from San Juan.

The Broncos cut the deficit to 2-1 in the bottom of the first inning on a sac fly from Ella Stearns, but in the third, Staheli singled home another run to push the lead to 3-1, and then scored one batter later on another error.

San Juan responded again on an RBI double from Kheirra Keith to cut the lead to 4-2. In reality, it should’ve been a two-run double, but the second runner fell down rounding third base and had to return to the bag.

The next batter grounded out to end the inning.

Aided by another San Juan error, and then four straight singles by Brynlon Nelson, Hadlee Holt, Nancy Platt and Alexi Walker, Enterprise scored three more runs in the top of the fourth to push the lead to 7-2.

Once again, San Juan had an immediate response, as back-to-back extra base hits by Miley Harrison and Keegan Palmer helped it score a pair of runs to cut the deficit to 7-4, but it stranded a couple of runners as a big inning was certainly possible.

Jones sensed San Juan’s hitters were starting to get a bead on starting pitcher Mylee Platt, so she brought in Ramos to pitch the final three innings and the fiery junior allowed only two hits and zero runs over those final at bats.

“They were catching on to Mylee. When we played them earlier in the season Mylee pitched both games against them and so we just knew that they were onto Mylee, and so we knew we had to make a change so that it would be a little harder for them,” said Jones.

Over the last three days and that seven-game winning streak, Jones pushed all the right buttons and her players responded with the fifth state championship in school history, all in the past eight years.