ST. GEORGE — The baseball team from Snow Canyon High School won the 4A state championship last year and is the preseason favorite to win it again this year.
The Warriors went undefeated through the state tournament and wrapped up their state title, the fifth in school history, with a 6-4 win over Mountain Crest last May.
Snow Canyon finished 28-4 overall last season, a school record. That team had 10 seniors, many of whom moved on to play baseball in college.
Snow Canyon will have a new lineup when it opens defense of the state title Friday night. But don’t expect the Warriors’ winning ways to change.
“I don’t think they’ll be too different,” Snow Canyon coach Reed Secrist told St. George News Monday night in his office as the Warriors warmed up for practice outside.
“We’re not as deep in pitching as we were last year, a lot of those guys graduated,” Secrist added. “But I think we’re going to be solid defensively, like we were last year, and I think we’ll swing it well, hopefully get to a lot of gaps and get doubles.”
“I think we’re pretty much the same team, really,” he added. “I mean we definitely have some big shoes to fill but we’ll have some young guys be able to do that.”
Snow Canyon’s junior varsity went undefeated last year, so the Warriors will be reloading their roster rather than rebuilding it.
Secrist said seniors Luke Anderson and Isaac Lyon are two players Snow Canyon expects big years from.
“They played last year. Hopefully, they know what it’s all about,” Secrist said. “They’ve been doing a great job leading these guys the last few months.”
Secrist also named seniors Ethan Anderson and Jake Johnson, two junior varsity pitchers last year, as key contributors this year.
“Happy to see them, they kind of got caught in the depth of pitching we had last year so they didn’t see much varsity time,” Secrist said. “Both of them looked really well this winter.”
Outfielders Logan Mendenhall and Drake Kelly provide more senior leadership for the Warriors, and Secrist said Ryker Gates and Preston Frei have a shot at contributing to the team as well.
And Secrist hopes junior outfielder and catcher Sam Lindsey, who had a very strong state tournament, will do so again this year for Snow Canyon.
In a preseason coaches poll, Deseret News ranked four Region 10 teams among 4A’s top five in the state: Snow Canyon, Desert Hills, Dixie and Crimson Cliffs (first through fourth, respectively).
Ridgeline was the only Region 11 team ranked in the poll at fifth.
“I think that’s pretty accurate,” Secrist said. “When you look around the region, most teams have two really good pitchers that could win any given night. So we’re going to have to make sure we’re ready.”
“I think you just better be ready to play in our region like we’ve always done for the past 18 years here,” Secrist said. “Anybody can win this region.”
The Warriors will find out quickly where they’re at against good competition Friday night, when they host Lehi at 7 p.m. and Uintah at 9:30 p.m. in a season-opening doubleheader.
“We’ve played Lehi quite a bit, and they’re good,” Secrist said. “They’ve got pitching depth, that game should be really good. And Uintah has a couple guys that can pitch and they are wellcoached, so both of those should be pretty good matchups.”
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