Frisco Heritage to face nation’s No. 1 team in first trip to UIL softball state tournament

Montgomery Lake Creek is beatable. That’s the good news for Frisco Heritage.

Heritage (34-3-1) learned Sunday that its first trip to the UIL softball state tournament will begin Friday with a 10 a.m. Class 5A state semifinal against a 42-1 Lake Creek team that is the defending state champion and is ranked No. 1 in the nation by MaxPreps. Lake Creek saw its 82-game winning streak end with an 8-2 loss to Georgetown in Game 2 of the 5A Region III final on Friday but came back to win Game 3, 3-2 in eight innings, later that night.

That best-of-3 series was a rematch of last year’s state championship game that Lake Creek won 7-0.

Friday’s semifinal will be quite a pitching matchup. Heritage ace Jensin Hall, a Dartmouth pledge, has pitched 26 consecutive scoreless innings, striking out 41 while allowing just 11 hits over the last four games. That included back-to-back 1-0 wins over Melissa and Frisco Lone Star in pressure-packed one-game playoffs in the last two rounds.

Lake Creek senior pitcher Ava Brown is a Florida signee who was the Gatorade Texas Player of the Year last season. Brown is 55-0 over the last two years with a 0.51 ERA and 601 strikeouts in 341 1/3 innings, and she is hitting .440 with 19 home runs and 105 RBIs in that span.

Heritage is trying to win Frisco ISD’s first softball state title since Frisco won the 4A championship in 2002.

In the other 5A semifinal Friday, Colleyville Heritage (37-7) will make its first state tournament appearance since 1998 when it plays Comal Canyon (31-0) at 1 p.m. at the University of Texas’ Red & Charline McCombs Field in Austin. Canyon is the only unbeaten team at this year’s state tournament and has a chance to become the sixth school in UIL history to win a state title with an undefeated record.

Colleyville Heritage pitcher Lindsey McConnell threw shutouts in Games 1 and 3 of the 5A Region I final series against Justin Northwest, including a four-hitter in Saturday’s 1-0 win in Game 3. She came within three outs of a perfect game in Game 1.

Denton Guyer (37-1) is back at state for the first time since 2010 and will play Cypress Bridgeland (36-7-1) in a 6A semifinal at 7 p.m. Friday. Guyer, ranked No. 4 in the nation, had Oregon pledge Kaylynn Jones (.554), Abilene Christian signee Avery Jefferson (.533), Texas A&M-Commerce signee Tehya Pitts (.449) and Texas State commit Erin Peterson (.421) all hitting better than .400 going into the 6A Region I final series against Keller that Guyer won in three games.

Aubrey (34-7) will play Corpus Christi Calallen (28-6-2) in a 4A semifinal at 7 p.m. Thursday. It is Aubrey’s fourth trip to state — the first since 2007 — while Calallen is at state for the third time since 2019.

On Twitter: @DMNGregRiddle

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