Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Bear River girls' lacrosse team won their fourth consecutive 4A championship.
- Shelby Wilkinson scored five goals, including the decisive one, against Waterford.
- Bear River overcame challenges, including missing players, to maintain a perfect season.
HERRIMAN — Shelby Wilkinson remembers the first time she played organized lacrosse, a pig-tailed sixth-grader on a team with players as young as 7 to fill out numbers.
Needless to say, it was anything but the Bear River team that chased a second consecutive perfect season Thursday afternoon.
"We were so bad," she said. "We got clapped every single time; we were playing against all sixth graders who had been playing forever.
"But it was so much fun, and that's where I fell in love with lacrosse," added Wilkinson, who has committed to Division III Williamette (Ore.).
Wilkinson scored five goals Thursday afternoon, including the decisive free-position goal with 49 seconds remaining to help Bear River win its fourth straight 4A championship in an 8-6 result over Waterford at Zions Bank Stadium
From filling out numbers with second graders to winning a historic state title — the first four-peat since the Utah High School Activities Association sanctioned the sport prior to the 2021 season — with one of those second graders, Bear River freshman Jeanine Webb, Wilkinson helped turn around a program that lost close to double-digit seniors a year ago.
"I knew coming in this was going to be a battle," said Bear River coach Jeremy Webb, whose program won its 57th consecutive game. "Honestly, I was surprised we jumped out on them like we did at the beginning. In the second half, I made a couple of decisions that if I had to do it over again, I'd probably change.
"But it's not about that. It's about one stat at the end of the game, that four-peat."
Only one thing to do if you're Bear River and you just won your 4th straight 4A state title 🥶 🧊 💦 pic.twitter.com/Q2oRvoOA0A
— KSL.com Sports (@KSLcomSports) May 23, 2025
Bear River won without two of its top players, sisters Brinlie and Molly Call who combined for 64 goals on the year, were in Hawaii with their mother battling brain cancer.
Down, but not out.
"We stayed strong, and we said, let's win one for her," Webb said. "We taught the girls, it doesn't matter what your obstacles are. We knew this was going to be a battle today."
The Bears (21-0) led by as much as 6-2 at halftime, paced by a hat trick from Wilkinson and a goal and two assists from Ella Criddle.
But Waterford (14-4) didn't go away.
The Ravens rallied, scoring twice in the first three minutes of the third quarter including Anne Howard's goal from a free position with 9:25 on the clock to pull within two.
Howard struck again to open the fourth quarter, and Waterford — which played down for much of the second half due to penalties — cut the deficit to one when Whitney Spanos found the back of the net with 2:12 remaining.
But Addison Allen had a crucial groundball pickoff in the final minutes, and Wilkinson converted from the free position for her fifth goal of the match to help the Bears hold on in their closest win of the season.
"We just had to come together, relax, take a breath," Wilkinson said. "It was kind of hard to be in that situation in a championship game. But we trusted each other; I think that's what it came down to.
"The trust that we had and that confidence got us to this championship."
