Huskies’ second-half surge nets North Fremont first ever state softball trophy
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ASHTON — The Huskies went 1-2 in the 2024 Softball State Championships. Still, they entered the 2025 season with limited expectations — partially because North Fremont High School had never won a softball state trophy.
Well, that can be said no longer.
Following an 15-8 regular season, the Huskies went 3-0 in the 3A District 6 Softball Tournament to earn their second state bid in as many years. Once there, they beat Orofino — avenging a first-round loss from a year ago. They backed that win up with a victory over a Malad Dragon team that has been a mainstay in the state championship game — a Malad Dragon team that had beaten the Huskies twice in the regular season, once by a score of 20-0.
Ericka Robertson and her husband Todd Robertson have coached the Huskies since the 2022 season, and have taken them to the state championships three times. This year, she told EastIdahoSports.com, is the first time North Fremont won its first-round matchup under the Robertsons.
Their season ended with a third-place finish and a green trophy that will forever be displayed at North Fremont High School.
“It’s something that we didn’t expect,” Robertson said. “At the beginning of the season, it was a lot shakier than it was at the end. Those kids really learned to work together.”
The Ashton community, the coach added, has received its softball team as the victors they are — having broken the state trophy seal.
“I have heard nothing but praises to those kids, from our community,” she said. “Our community — we have the best support, those kids are truly loved. When they heard, it wasn’t, ‘Awe man, sorry you didn’t get first,’ it was, ‘Wow, that is incredible.'”
As Robertson explained, the Huskies 2025 campaign did not get off to a promising start.
Following an 20-0 stomping at the hands of the Dragons on April 12, their record stood at a very modest 5-7.
A week later, they went to Malad City for the Scott Ray Invitational tournament. And that was when their season turned around.
Ahead of the tournament, Robertson got a call from Malad head coach Bri Adams, who asked if they could honor the Robertsons’ late son, Weston.
Weston died in 2020, at the age of 4, following a battle with cancer.
Malad City and its high school wanted to honor Weston and one of their own — Brielle Bird, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2020, at the age of 4.
“Our girls have been supportive of our son, they always want to bring him to every game and everything we do,” Robertson said of her Huskies.
At the Scott Ray, North Fremont was allowed to wear their summer uniforms, which the team calls the Weston Wayne Warrior unis.
Being able to embrace someone so dear to the team as a whole, and, along with the Malad Dragons, realizing how the game is bigger than what goes on on the field, was important in the turnaround they achieved.
North Fremont battled Malad to a gritty 8-3 defeat at the tournament, then proceeded to go on a nine-game winning streak — which included a victory over Malad at the state championships.
The Scott Ray, Robertson said, brought the already close team even closer. There was a “huge difference” in the way the girls played for each other, the coach added.
“From there on out, they came together with a bigger purpose than just the game,” Robertson said. “We love each other, we believe in each other. It was, ‘I’m going to play for my teammate, not just myself.’ … “I’ve never coached a team that believed in each other the way this team did.”
The late run gave Robertson hope.
“As a coach … if we struggle at the beginning of the year but we finish strong at the end of the year, that’s all you can ask for,” she said. “They’re doing something right if they’re getting better.”
Reinvigorated by their love for each other and commitment to playing for each other, the Huskies were led down the home stretch of the season by junior Peyton Lenz, who was named All-Conference Player of the Year.
The three-sport start was North Fremont’s lone varsity pitcher, logging more than 178 innings for a total of more than 3,000 pitches on the season. But she never wavered and never complained, her coach said. Instead, she went about her business carrying the team mantra of playing for each other.
“She pitched a ton. … That’s insane, but she has a mentality of, ‘I got this.’ She never gets rattled, never lets anything faze her,” Robertson said of Lenz, adding that she tossed 437 pitches during the state championships, 170 in an extra-inning win over Orofino alone. “She gave me everything she had and that’s all I can ask for. She is a stud.”
Asked if there was any singular performance or moment that she would hold higher than others when reminiscing on the 2025 season, Roberts said, without hesitation, that the 7-5 victory over Malad takes the cake.
Lenz, like every other game, pitched that game from start to finish. But she did so while navigating a potent lineup. And she added a pair of homers of her own. The Huskies also got some pop from unexpected spots in the order. Juniors Makyah Cherry and London Marsden each hit their first varsity home runs in that game, according to Robertson.
“Watching those kids celebrate (those homers) was the highlight, I think, of the game,” she said. … “State was absolutely a blast this year, watching those kids. … There was so much good that came out of that tournament that you don’t even think about the bad anymore. You celebrate the good, because that is just going to carry them for the next year.”
About next year, Robertson will return most of her key contributors — losing just three seniors. Lenz, a junior, will be right back at the center of things.
Another returning factor is Robertson’s partner, in life and at the helm of the Husky softball program, Todd, whom she said plays an irreplaceable role as a mentor and coach.
North Fremont softball, she concluded, will be coming off a season in which they were district champs, academic state champs, third in state and had eight players named All-Conference performers. All things add up to higher expectations in 2026.
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