Pressure and time: Davis defense fractures against Lone Peak in 6A girls soccer finals
No. 1 Knights blank No. 2 Darts 3-0 in rematch of 2024 championship
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- Lone Peak’s Sadie Stratton (10) and Davis High’s Jaycee Lund (23) battle it out during the 6A girls soccer state championship game on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Lone Peak’s Sadie Stratton (10) and Davis High’s Lola Martineau (14) battle it out during the 6A girls soccer state championship game on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Davis High’s Londyn Bond (back, 19) watches Lone Peak’s Sadie Stratton (10) and Macie Leavitt (5) celebrate a goal during the 6A girls soccer state championship game on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Lone Peak’s Sasha Casto (14) and Davis High’s Frankie Franks (8) battle it out during the 6A girls soccer state championship game on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Lone Peak’s Sadie Stratton (10) celebrates a goal during the 6A girls soccer state championship game on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Davis High’s Samantha Maudsley (2) steers the ball back into play during the 6A girls soccer state championship game on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Left to right: Lone Peak’s Macie Leavitt (5) Davis High’s Vivian Fries (6), and Lone Peak’s Nya Piercy (25) pictured during the 6A girls soccer state championship game on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Davis High’s Samantha Maudsley (2) and Lone Peak’s Nya Piercy (25) battle it out during the 6A girls soccer state championship game on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Davis High’s Lillian Lever (30) chases Lone Peak’s Sadie Stratton (10) during the 6A girls soccer state championship game on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Lone Peak’s Sadie Stratton (10) closes in on Davis High goalkeeper Jazmyn Booyse (pink) during the 6A girls soccer state championship game on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
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- Davis High students get loud during the 6A girls soccer state championship game on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman. (BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner)
HERRIMAN — It’s a tough ask of any head coach to greet their team in the minutes after a hard-fought state championship effort. The exercise wasn’t any easier for Dillon Richens and Davis High girls soccer on Friday than it was two years ago when Lone Peak hoisted the very same 6A state title at Zions Bank Stadium.
Providing a 3-0 shutout victory in this year’s title match, top seed Lone Peak hoisted its fourth all-time title and the No. 2 Darts accepted their second runner-up result of the Richens era.
Many of the 14 Davis seniors that exited the loss were suited up for the 2-0 loss two years ago.
Davis (15-5), missing out on a share of the Region 1 title in a regular-season loss at Farmington, swung back around and eliminated the No. 3 Phoenix from the semifinals to reach the finals for a fourth time since 2020. This year’s Darts squad cleared the 6A field to reach the finals without their starting goalkeeper, too, turning sophomore Jazmyn Booyse and softball transplant Cambell Christensen to finish the season.
“It’s just wanting to make sure they know they’re loved,” Richens said about the game’s aftermath. “The team is a team. We’re trying to meet all our goals, but at the end of the day we walk away with the second-place trophy and, hopefully, a lot of friends and family.
“There’s a support system to rely on and know cares about them. The sport’s great, we love the game, but it’s about community.”
Davis, which claims five all-time girls soccer state titles, has reached the semifinals or finals since tapping Richens as the program’s head coach in 2023.
“You can look at it as a state championship game or just as a soccer game,” Richens said. “I don’t think it’s a one-size-fits-all, and you kind of have to know each girl and their personality and motivate them the way they need to be motivated. But they were zipping all playoff, so it was more of the same and just keeping the same momentum that we’ve had.”
Overcoming the loss of Olive George in goal midseason, Davis entered Friday’s match confident in Booyse and a Davis defense that’d posted a 13-3 postseason goal differential in reaching the final.
Davis opened the match winning multiple balls on the back end — including one-on-one matchups decided by defenders Jane Taylor, Marley Francis and Koa Hubbard — but Katherine Mason’s 20-yard bullet put the Knights (18-3) in the driver’s seat for a 1-0 lead at halftime.
The Darts were unsuccessful in penetrating the net through several chances in the first 40 minutes. Lone Peak goalkeeper Scotlyn Schlosser got her gloves around two of Davis senior Courtney Burbidge’s three free-kick opportunities in the final 15 minutes of the first half.
“I know (Schlosser) from club, so it’s kind of hard. She was really good against our high shots,” Davis senior Samantha Maudsley said. “I think we just should’ve shot lower and we would’ve had a goal.”
Maudsley, who is committed to play at Pepperdine next fall, commended her defense, and specifically Booyse in goal, for providing their attack with a backbone on Friday.
“It’s a lot of pressure for her, and she’s handled it so well,” Maudsley said. “Our defense has been especially locked in during the playoffs. It’s win or go home, so they’ve been doing very (well) at winning 50-50 (balls) and getting it out of the box and stepping up to the line before any of their forwards can get a chance.”
Most walls fall in time, and Davis ended up the first to crack.
It’d take 15 minutes of back-and-forth soccer, but Avery Johnson, wheeling toward the net, got a proper look at the net when a lane to Kate Willard closed and forced Johnson’s unsuccessful try off the right side of the goal. Booyse followed up the run with a big-time save, cutting off a potential second Mason goal as the Knights began their charge through Davis’ back line.
Sadie Stratton carved out the sequence Lone Peak eagerly sought, as the senior forward cut around Burbidge by a razor’s edge to set Kami McMurtrey up with an easy tap-in goal, raising Davis’ deficit to two goals with roughly 20 minutes left to go.
Richens felt Davis had one or two opportunities early to get on the board, but that, ultimately, Lone Peak arrived fully ready to match his unit up top.
“The windows were there in the first half, and they did a good job of pinning us in,” Richens said. “That’s an extremely well-rounded team and made it hard for us at every spot on the field.”
Building upon her assist and a big day at-large, Stratton netted a third Lone Peak goal on a late set piece deep in Davis territory with roughly 6 minutes left.
As time expired, Maudsley, speaking of her fellow soon-to-be 2027 graduates, felt more than a shot at a state title has gone beyond them as their respective high school soccer careers fold.
“We’ve been together since before high school; I think it’s more sad that we have to leave each other than the loss (itself),” Maudsley said. “We’re best friends, and this is our favorite season to play; and that we got this far, it just hurts a little more.”
Of his latest outgoing senior class, Richens said the players leave a clinic in collective endurance.
“They leave behind what it takes to get through stuff,” Richens said. “I feel like they’ve gone through the vast majority of high school sports teams, period. Hopefully, they can view that as the victory.
“You don’t play championship games every day, but there are challenges every day, and I think they show how to go through life’s challenges together, with a group, and hopefully that’s a lesson the underclassmen can keep on going.”
With Davis firmly seated as the 6A runner-up, Northern Utah’s girls soccer fates are up to Ogden, the No. 2 seed in the 3A finals that faces No. 1 Manti on Saturday morning.
Connect with Standard-Examiner sports reporter Conner Becker via email at cbecker@standard.net, X @ctbecker and Instagram @standardexaminersports.
