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Lehi catcher Piper Emery has been a big part of her team's success, both from the plate and in managing the pitching staff. May 8, 2026

Brandon Gurney, Provo Daily Herald

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Lehi senior Mya Maughan has moved her way up the order throughout the season and has become one of her team's premier sluggers. May 8, 2026

Brandon Gurney, Provo Daily Herald

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Lehi junior Liv Davies has often sparked her team's offensive attack batting leadoff. May 8, 2026

Brandon Gurney, Provo Daily Herald

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Of all the 25 wins Lehi’s softball team has taken this season, many of them by double-digit margins, a tight win versus Herriman back on April 30 may prove the most significant as the Pioneers head into 6A state tournament play.

The Pioneers had a rally late in the game versus the Mustangs, putting up a run to tie things up at 6-6 to force the game into extra innings. Lehi then took the win after eight innings in what was certainly one of the longer outings of the season while defeating a non-region opponent in Herriman, a team that’s likely to be granted the No. 1 seed when tournament rankings are released later this week.

“It was a huge game for us,” said Lehi coach Tim Kennedy. “They took us to eight innings, which hasn’t even come close to happening this year, for the most part, but we’re going to have games like that in the state tournament, so it’s great that these girls had that game to get through. They found a way.”

When scanning through Lehi’s results this season, it’s very apparent that it’s dominated Region 3 play while not allowing any team to come within 10 runs during most games played with more than several of those games shortened due to the 10-run rule after five innings and the 15-run rule after three. Without doing a copious amount of research, it could well be assumed that the Pioneers may have played the fewest amount of innings of any team in the state this season.

“I could be, although that’s not a stat I focus on,” Kennedy said. “We’ve scored a lot of runs and then haven’t given up as many runs, so you’re going have a lot of games shortened when that happens, and yeah, we’ve had more than several that didn’t go the full seven innings. We’ve scored 310 runs this year, or around there and given up just around 70, so yeah, we haven’t been in a lot of tight games.”

A lot of Lehi’s dominance has been predicated on Region 3 simply not housing many top teams, a fact that Kennedy readily points out. But for this reason, facing teams such as Herriman, which resides in a very competitive Region 2, is a very necessary component in developing a team that’s capable of winning a state championship.

In order to win a state championship, sure putting up a lot of runs is a necessary ingredient, although most coaches will first point to pitching. As for Lehi, a big reason why it’s secured so many blowout wins is due to its pitching, which is where Kennedy starts when assessing his team’s 2026 championship chances.

“Abbi Houron has been our No. 1 starter, but we’ve been resting her quite a bit leading up to the tournament, and we’re able to do that because we have two other great pitchers with Claire Crutchfield and Jaxie Medler,” Kennedy said. “Claire and Jaxie have been holding it down for us to finish out the regular season for the most part, and that’s going to be a big thing because Abbi just ran out of gas last year in the tournament. So we’re going to need all three of them and we’re confident in all of them in getting the job done.”

As for the hitting, setting the table for most of the season has been senior Liv Davies, who leads the team in batting average.

“She’s been so good getting on base so that some of our big bats behind her and bring her around the bases,” Kennedy said. “She’s exactly what you want at the top of your order and she’s been a diamond for us.”

Batting second is Camry Wassmer, who Kennedy describes as a great bat to move runners into scoring position to set up the big bats provided by players like Piper Emery and Mya Maughan.

“Mya started off the season struggling a bit, so she was down in the order, but she started to get going and we’ve slowly moved her up to the point where she’s now our cleanup hitter,” Kennedy said. “We’ve sort of locked down our order now, and we feel really good about how our bats stack up entering the state tournament.”

As for the state tournament, Kennedy likes his team’s chances, although he understands it’s going to be a grind.

“There’s a lot of great teams and I really do feel it’s pretty wide open,” he concluded. “We’re probably going to get the No. 3 seed, but we’ll see on that. So we feel we can compete with anyone, and winning a championship would obviously be a great thing for these girls who have worked so hard this season and certainly for the program and the Lehi community.”