A giant smile washed over Miah Lusk’s face like a tsunami. She stood outside her Pocatello team’s dugout on Wednesday afternoon, the weather finally decent and the sun finally shining, as she chatted about what this win over Highland meant to her and the Thunder.

“I’ve been dying to beat these guys ever since freshman year,” said Lusk, a junior. “I’ve always just thought we have more culture, we’re more of a family, we work together better. We just attack. So this is great. This was immediately like, yes, we got this in the bag.”

Consider what Lusk did to help Poky blow out Highland, 10-1, and you might understand what she means. In the circle, she recorded the following line: Complete seven innings, one run on three hits, two walks, 15 strikeouts — and that last number is no typo. She froze the Rams with her fastball and baffled them with her changeup. She looked unhittable, and she nearly was.

That represented the latest chapter in what has been a sparkling campaign for Lusk — we’ll get to that in a minute — but through the lens of this Poky win, it amounted to a giant sigh of relief. The Thunder hadn’t beaten the Rams in exactly a decade, which is the kind of streak that will drive rivals crazy, regardless of the fact these guys compete in separate classifications. So for Poky, sure, it was just one win. But it was a rout — over a cross-town rival.

“Even though we did what we expected to do, it does mean something,” Pocatello coach Josh Naylor said. “I mean, you’re always trying to beat your in-town rival and have that bragging rights of, OK, who has the best softball program in your town?”

In the Gate City, that appears to be Pocatello, which has yet to lose this spring. With this win, Poky improved to a spotless 16-0, an unbeaten streak that has shown no signs of slowing down. The Thunder have beaten teams in their city. They’ve beaten teams from Idaho Falls, from Twin Falls, from different states entirely. They just keep winning.

Yet to them, no win has felt like this. They didn’t just beat Highland. They beat them with exceedingly little trouble.

“I definitely think we put it out there that our team is the best in the west side of Pocatello,” Lusk said. “We’re the best in our city. We put it out there that we will attack and play our best against whoever, no matter what happened in the past, what’s happening now. We are there to attack as a team and we will destroy you.”

On Wednesday afternoon, the Thunder did exactly that. In the first inning, Poky plated a gaudy nine runs, racing to a comfortable lead before anyone had a chance to really settle in. In that frame, catcher McKinley hill singled home a run that scored via error, Azlinn Bullock singled home Hill, Taylor Bunderson accepted a bases-loaded walk, Oakley Hirschi lined a bases-clearing double into the outfield, Anna Campbell tripled home two runs and Hill — back up in the same inning — plated another run via single.

Phew. Take a breath. That’s a lot of scoring.

“That definitely boosted our momentum and our urge to keep fighting,” Lusk said. “It helped us together as a team all be like, yes, we’re positive throughout the game. We’re doing this, we’re gonna keep doing this. We just have this in the bag.”

“I’ve been working on just beating my bat to the ball,” Hirschi added of her double. “And I just feel like a lot of hard work has helped me to be able to get that, and it helped a lot that coaches were helping me along the way.”

The Thunder only registered one run the rest of the way, another RBI single from Hill, but the lead was safe thanks to Lusk. If she’s not in the conversation for best pitcher in the state, well, she probably should be. Here are her numbers this season: 11-0, 62 innings pitched, 0.92 ERA, 126 strikeouts — and opponents are hitting just .124 against her. Her ERA ranks third in the state. Her 11 wins rank first. She’s been nearly untouchable.

“Miah is just a phenomenal, phenomenal pitcher,” Naylor said. “She’s one of those pitchers that comes around every 10 or so years, you know what I mean? She throws hard, but she commands the zone. She can change speeds. She’s ultra competitive. And she just keeps getting better and better.”

Later on, standing off to the side of the OK Ward softball complex, Naylor added this, referencing the importance of this win over Highland: “It meant a lot to the girls, and it meant a lot to us coaches. We don’t think it’s a fluke at all. Maybe we’ll go on a 10-year run where they don’t beat us.”