5A Baseball: Maple Mountain, Spanish Fork not ready to be done yet
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- Maple Mountain’s Jeremiah Hall (right) slides in safely at third base against Pleasant Grove in a 5A baseball state playoff game at UCCU Ballpark on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
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- Spanish Fork’s Nixon Warren celebrates a double in a 5A baseball state playoff game against West Field at UCCU Ballpark on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
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- Maple Mountain players react in the dugout during a 5A baseball state playoff game against Pleasant Grove at UCCU Ballpark on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
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- Pleasant Grove coach Darrin Henry (right) and Nash Clement (at second base) protest an umpire’s call in a 5A baseball state playoff game at UCCU Ballpark on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
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- Maple Mountain’s Brooks Pratt takes a swing against Pleasant Grove in a 5A baseball state playoff game at UCCU Ballpark on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
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- Spanish Fork’s Nixon Warren (8) is greeted by teammate Cody McClean after scoring a run against West Field in a 5A baseball playoff game at UCCU Ballpark on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
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- Maple Mountain’s Hayden Hyatt throws a pitch against Pleasant Grove in a 5A baseball state playoff game at UCCU Ballpark on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
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- Maple Mountain’s Kye Ward dives back to first base as Damon Banks of Pleasant Grove awaits the throw in a 5A baseball state playoff game at UCCU Ballpark on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
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- Spanish Fork’s Sammy Dart throws a pitch in a 5A baseball state playoff game against West Field at UCCU Ballpark on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
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- Maple Mountain’s Cole Allred (21) rounds third base on his way to score against Pleasant Grove in a 5A baseball state playoff game at UCCU Ballpark on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
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- Pleasant Grove’s Connor Ybarra throws a pitch against Maple Mountain in a 5A baseball state playoff game at UCCU Ballpark on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
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- Spanish Fork’s Sammy Dart throws a pitch in a 5A baseball state playoff game against West Field at UCCU Ballpark on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
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- Maple Mountain’s Mitch Walker heads for home against Pleasant Grove in a 5A baseball state playoff game at UCCU Ballpark on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
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- Spanish Fork”s Nixon Warren runs to first base in a 5A baseball state playoff game against West Field at UCCU Ballpark on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
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- Spanish Fork’s Matai Johnson is dismayed after being called out at first base in a 5A baseball state playoff game against West Field at UCCU Ballpark on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
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- Spanish Fork shortstop Cohen Nelson throws to first base in a 5A baseball state playoff game against West Field at UCCU Ballpark on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
It’s the state tournament.
Nobody wants their season to end.
Maple Mountain and Spanish Fork made sure that didn’t happen.
Both faced elimination games in the 5A state baseball tournament on Wednesday, and both teams earned tense victories to force two do-or-die “if necessary” contests on Thursday at Utah Valley’s UCCU Ballpark.
Maple Mountain 10, Pleasant Grove 8
The No. 3 seeded Vikings topped the No. 2 Golden Eagles on Tuesday 11-6, which forced Maple Mountain into the elimination bracket. Earlier on Wednesday, it survived with an 11-1 thrashing of No. 7 Fremont, which set up another elimination situation against Pleasant Grove.
This time, the Golden Eagles beat the Vikings 10-8, holding off a late PG rally that twice brought the tying run to the plate in the top of the seventh inning.
“We have a bunch of young guys that stepped up,” junior catcher Brooks Pratt said. “We’re a bunch of fighters and we’re scrappy.”
Pleasant Grove took an early 1-0 lead but Maple Mountain scored five runs over the next three innings to go up 5-1. The Vikings scored twice in the top of the fifth, including an RBI double from Karter Casperson, to close to 5-3 but the Golden Eagles got those two back in the bottom of the inning and led 7-3.
In the sixth, Maple Mountain scored three times, a the big blow a two-run triple by Lincoln Beenfield to push their lead to 10-3.
But the Vikings made them anything but comfortable, a two-run double by Vake Wolfgramm and an error leading to five runs on the board to trim the deficit to 10-8 with just one out. Keaton Nordick walked to bring the tying run at the plate but reliever Kingston McCloud forced a ground ball out and got Connor Ybarra to fly out to end the game.
Pratt was 2 for 3 with two RBI and Beenfield also knocked in a pair of runs. Hayden Hyatt, Mick Winward and McCloud held PG to just five hits but six walks, two hit batsman and three errors kept the game close.
The two teams split a pair of games in Region 7 play and have split two contests in the playoffs, setting up a fifth and deciding game to move on to the 5A championship series.
“Pleasant Grove is a great team,” Maple Mountain head coach Jeremy Thomas said. “We knew when they came into 5A that it was going to be a challenge for everybody, and we knew our region play it was going to prepare us for situations like this. You just hope that the guys can perform and make plays when it matters. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. Today we did, so we felt good about that.
“Whoever can throw the most strikes and whoever can make plays is typically going to keep the game close, then if we can have a good approach and swing the bat like we did today then we have a good chance. But it’s going to be a battle.”
Spanish Fork 4, West Field 2
The top-seeded Dons lost to No. 4 West Field 11-10 on Tuesday, the upstart Longhorns stunning fans with a seven-run seventh inning. That forced Spanish Fork into an elimination game on Wednesday afternoon, where they slipped past No. 21 Skyline 7-5.
In the rematch with West Field, Nixon Warren and Sammy Dart clubbed back-to-back doubles in the top of the third for a 1-0 lead. The Longhorns tied in up at 1-all in the bottom of the third on an RBI single by Sam Smith. West Field took a 2-1 lead in the fourth on an RBI single by Andrew Hurst.
Spanish Fork had runners in scoring position in both the fifth and sixth innings but could bring them in and still trailed 2-1 heading into the top of the seventh.
That’s when some magic happened.
In Tuesday’s loss to the Longhorns, reliever Marshall Moon shut the door on the Dons in the seventh. This time, Spanish Fork delivered the goods. Warren walked and Dart was hit by a pitch to get runners at first and second with one out. Trigg Howard hit a clutch single that brought Warren in to tie the score at 2. Dart was thrown out at home trying to give the Dons the lead and the score remained deadlocked.
Spanish Fork got the go-ahead run in the top of the eighth with Pratt Morley driving in a run with a single and Cohen Nelson providing an insurance run with an RBI triple.
Morley was the star of the game for the Dons, pitching four terrific relief innings. In that four inning stretch, Morley struck out eight batters, including two of the three he faced in the bottom of the eighth to preserve the 4-2 win.
“He’s just an absolute stud,” Spanish Fork head coach Hadley Thorpe said. “He throws hard in the zone all the time. That’s just our guy. When we’ve been in a very high leverage spot, we’ve gone to him and we trust him fully. If can go to him in a tight spot, we do it.”
Last year, the Dons made an historic run through the 5A tournament as the No. 20 seed, winning the title. This season as the favorite, they face an elimination game against West Field.
“We have a lot of holdovers from last year when we won it as a 20 seed, and we kind of took that mindset today,” Thorpe said. “It was us against the world so it was comfortable for us. This group wouldn’t do it the easy way, so they try to do it the hard way every time.”
Maple Mountain 11, Fremont 1
Mitch Walker went 3 for 3 and drove in six runs with a double and a homer as the Golden Eagles rebounded from their loss on Tuesday to earn a rematch with Region 7 foe Pleasant Grove.
Cache Peterson and Porter Eddington each went three innings on the mound for Maple Mountain, each allowing just two hits.
Spanish Fork 7, Skyline 5
Top seed Spanish Fork stayed alive by ending No. 21 Skyline’s Cinderella run in the tournament in a close contest on Wednesday afternoon.
Warren scored three runs and added a triple and Matai Johnson had three RBI for the Dons to set up a rematch with West Field.
