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Bear River senior Lucy Roche (center) celebrates with senior Bostyn Lish (left) after Lish made a running catch during the 4A championship series against Desert Hills at Gail Miller Field in Provo on Friday, May 16, 2025.

Jared Lloyd, Standard-Examiner

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Bear River senior Bostyn Lish makes a running catch during the 4A championship series against Desert Hills at Gail Miller Field in Provo on Friday, May 16, 2025.

Jared Lloyd, Standard-Examiner

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Bear River junior Kate Wilson throws a pitch during the 4A championship series against Desert Hills at Gail Miller Field in Provo on Friday, May 16, 2025.

Jared Lloyd, Standard-Examiner

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Bear River senior Bella Dougals hits the ball during the 4A championship series against Desert Hills at Gail Miller Field in Provo on Friday, May 16, 2025.

Jared Lloyd, Standard-Examiner

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Bear River senior Bella Dougals fields a ground ball during the 4A championship series against Desert Hills at Gail Miller Field in Provo on Friday, May 16, 2025.

Jared Lloyd, Standard-Examiner

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Bear River senior Kendyl Archibald throws the ball during the 4A championship series against Desert Hills at Gail Miller Field in Provo on Friday, May 16, 2025.

Jared Lloyd, Standard-Examiner

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Bear River players talk things over before the third and deciding game of the 4A championship series against Desert Hills at Gail Miller Field in Provo on Friday, May 16, 2025.

Jared Lloyd, Standard-Examiner

❮ ❯

An epic title series between two 30-plus-win teams needed all three games plus an extra inning to decide it.

After an early-inning tightrope, No. 1 Bear River and junior Kate Wilson got to the eighth inning in a third-straight duel with No. 2 Desert Hills and Lulu West with the score tied 2-2 in Game 3 of the 4A state championship softball series Friday at BYU’s Gail Miller Field.

In the bottom of the eighth, Desert Hills chose to intentionally walk the bases loaded after freshman Sami Theurer successfully sacrifice-bunted tiebreaker runner Aubree Fry to third base. Marley Tisdol got aluminum on cowhide, sending a sacrifice fly to right field and a tagging Fry sprinting and sliding home for a 3-2 victory and the state crown.

It’s Bear River’s Utah-best 12th state softball championship and first under head coach Jordan Theurer, who won four state championships as a player at BR from 2009-12.

“This is the best one yet,” Jordan Theurer said on a postgame live stream interview. “These girls have worked so hard and they have my heart.

“D Hills is an unbelievable program,” she continued. “They came to play and Lulu pitched her butt off.”

In the top half of the eighth and with a tiebreaker runner placed on second, Wilson got her fifth strikeout of the game and Kendyl Archibald left the runner stranded with a phenomenal diving, sliding catch in foul territory to keep it 2-2.

“I knew Kate had given it everything,” Archibald said, “so I threw my body at that ball and it went in (the glove).”

That was one of several top defensive plays for the Bears (33-3), who struggled early in the field with bailouts from Wilson before returning the favor in later innings. In the sixth inning, Bostyn Lish chased down a fly ball to the left-field corner and Fry got to the left-center gap at the warning track to leave a Thunder (32-4) runner stranded at third base.

Bear River scored first on a throwing error that plated Luci Roche in the bottom of the second. Desert Hills answered in the top of the third on an unearned run via error, one of two errors in the inning for the Bears. But Wilson induced a lineout to first and an infield popout to leave the bases loaded.

The Bears again took a lead in the bottom of the third, 2-1, when a Roche infield single scored Sami Theurer. But the Thunder answered again in the top of the fourth when West singled home Sierra Dennison to tie it 2-2. A Wilson walk and a misplayed infield indecision helped Desert Hills load the bases again; Wilson responded by inducing a popout, a shallow flyout, and a groundout to shortstop to leave all three stranded again.

That set up the Bears for several cleaner innings, including the defensive gems that got the game to extra innings.

DESERT HILLS 3, BEAR RIVER 1

Desert Hills pitcher Lulu West held Bear River to two hits in Game 2 on Friday morning.

Bear River tied the game in the bottom of the fourth inning when Kendyl Archibald reached on an error and Bostyn Lish scored from third base.

Sienna Foster scored on a Bailey Lee RBI single to give Desert Hills a 1-0 lead in the third inning. West hit an inside-the-park home run to take back the lead for good. Bailey Lee scored on a Bees throwing error for the final margin.

West pitched a complete game for the Thunder, with two hits, two walks and five strikeouts.

Kate Wilson took the hard-luck loss for the Bears, allowing eight hits while striking out 11.

Justin B. Johnson contributed to this report.