Southern Utah’s High School Baseball Supremacy Rolls On
This Saturday on the 16th of May at 7:00 PM, the Crimson Cliffs Mustangs and Snow Canyon Warriors will meet in the Utah 4A baseball state title game for the 3rd time in as many as 4 years.
It’s not just a matchup rooted in region based rivalry, nor is it just a fun game because of the proximity of the two teams.
It means much more than that.
For current 4A teams in Southern Utah, it goes above and beyond simply a chance to win a championship.
This game is about crafting a legacy, a dynasty, an untouchable mark on the history of High School Sports in Utah.
It’s about not only upholding the grip that Southern Utah has on the baseball scene at the 4A level, but making sure you sit at the top of the hierarchy.
To paint a full picture of the magnitude of such a scene, it is essential to know how dominant teams from this part of the state have been and for how many years.
I know Dixie was king in the 90’s with 3 of the schools 8 titles happening from 1994-1997 and I am aware that Cedar totaled 5 championships from 1957 to 1966.
But for the purpose of this demonstration our look at the reign of current Region 9 teams starts in 2000 when the Cedar Reds toppled Dixie to win it all.
That Cedar championship would start the upwards, 25 year climb, for southern Utah teams beginning to not only take over, but to dominate.
After that, a current region 9 team today would account for championships 5 times in ten years from 2000-2010 with Cedar (2000), Dixie (2006) and Pine View (2003) all winning a title.
Snow Canyon would win two in that span winning it all in both 2002 and 2007.
That was pretty good stuff already, but Snow Canyon continually upped the ante by hanging back to back banners in 2012 and 2013.
That would make it 7 titles in 14 years for these southern Utah schools, meaning that 50 percent of the time it was a coin flip that a southern utah team would win it all.
Not bad odds by any means.
Yet, anyone around the ball clubs down here knows that a good chance isn’t good enough.
That’s when the local schools started the “southern streak”, moving from a top competitor to THEE competitors.
Today’s Region 9 schools have won the championship every single season from Pine View’s 2015 3A clincher over Cedar to the most recent Snow Canyon title over Dixie last year in 4A.
That’s nine straight years of winning.
Nine straight years of southern Utah taking home a crown.
The “Southern Streak”, from 2015-2025, ranges from the 3A to 4A levels and has consisted of champions in the form of:
SNOW CANYON: 2021, 2024
DIXIE: 2017, 2018
PINE VIEW: 2015, 2016
CRIMSON CLIFFS: 2022, 2023
DESERT HILLS: 2019
Focusing again on the present time period and one would see that Crimson Cliffs is angling for their 3rd title since 2021 starting tomorrow.
Snow Canyon is the defending state champion from the 2023-2024 season and looking for consecutive titles for the 2nd time in school history. (2012,2013).
Regardless of who emerges victorious this weekend in a must see series, the southern streak is officially at ten straight years of one of these schools from the same region being crowned champion.
Making it all the more impressive is that the competition at the 4A level is quite fierce outside of Region 9.
Both Timpanogos and Ridgeline were only plays away from forcing a potential game 2 at the tail end of bracket play this year.
The season prior saw Bear River and Timpanogos only one game away from competing for a title.
The local schools have that target on their back, they are aware of the history and the pedigree that comes with being a Region 9 baseball team, and they’ve handled it tremendously.
The top of Region 9 for at least one more year and year ten as whole, will once again be the top of the classification.
Now all attention shifts to who will hoist the trophy at the end of it all, whether it be the Mustangs or the Warriors, one can expect one thing out at Utah Tech University.
When the red storm settles, Region 9 is still king of the Utah 4A baseball world.
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