If baseballs had eyes, there’d be little doubt that the game ball from Saturday’s Class 6A state championship game was a big Goddard High fan.

How else would you explain the mere inches that contributed to Free State High’s championship loss?

Free State fell, 5-4 in eight innings, in the championship game Saturday at Hoglund Ballpark when Goddard catcher Tyler Weber smoked a line drive down the left-field line that cleared the wall by a couple of feet and stayed fair by less than that.

The mob at home plate after Weber’s shot served notice that the state champions of Class 6A baseball don’t reside in Lawrence.

They merely collected the trophy here.

“The guy put a good swing on the ball,” FSHS shortstop Robby Price said. “We can’t do anything about it.”

It’s true, though the Firebirds once again played the role of comeback kids in a thrilling final game. Just like their opening-round, come-from-behind victory over Blue Valley West on Friday, the Firebirds Saturday fell in an early deficit before battling back and tying it when there was just one out left in the season.

This time, the clutch hitting came off Price’s bat. The sophomore came to the plate with two outs in the seventh and Goddard leading, 4-3. Tyler Blankenship was on second, the work of a hit-by-pitch and an Anthony Dreiling sacrifice bunt.

Price took an 0-1 offering from Ryan Bohanon and grounded it up the middle for an RBI single that tied the game at 4.

Free State High's Shawn Pringle buries his face after the Firebirds fell to Goddard, 5-4 in eight innings, in the championship game of the Class 6A state baseball tournament. The Firebirds were runners-up Saturday at Kansas University's Hoglund Ballpark.

Robby’s brother, Ryne Price, then stepped in and laced two ropes down the right-field line that were foul by the length of a shoe. Had either been fair, Robby Price probably would have scored the go-ahead run.

Ryne Price ended up grounding out to end the inning.

“It’s a game inches,” FSHS coach Mike Hill said. “We get a couple of balls down the line here that would’ve put us up, but it didn’t work. That’s baseball.”

Max Ellenbecker shut down Goddard in the bottom of the seventh to finish off a gutsy relief effort. Ellenbecker, a junior, pitched seven innings Friday, too, but relied on adrenaline to get him through four innings of relief Saturday, when he struck out five and didn’t allow a run.

For the tournament, Ellenbecker had 11 innings pitched, two earned runs and no walks.

“He’s a stud,” Hill said. “The strides he’s made this year, I can’t begin to explain to you. He’s going to be something to watch out for next year. I was very, very happy with his courage today.”

Goddard had a strong relief effort of its own from Bohanon. A Nebraska signee, Bohanon started in the Lions’ 9-8 semifinal win over Olathe North, but still had enough in the tank to overwhelm Firebird hitters.

6Sports video: One swing ends Firebirds’ title hopes

In just 2 2/3 innings of relief, he struck out five batters and allowed just the one run in the seventh inning that tied it.

“Truthfully, he threw a lot better the second game than he did the first game,” Weber said. “I think he stepped up to the occasion.”

After Free State couldn’t manage more than a Scott Heitshusen single in the eighth, Weber came to the plate looking to reach base and be the winning run.

He ended up being the winning run — by driving himself in on a 1-2 pitch that sneaked around the bottom of the left field foul pole.

“I was walking up to the plate, and coach (Steve) Sheahon said ‘Why don’t you just end it now?'” said Weber, who has signed to play at Wichita State next year. “I thought ‘Well, I’ll just go for a hit.'”

Weber’s dramatics ended the seasons for two remarkable teams. Goddard, at 23-2, won its first-ever state title in baseball and has three players signed to play at perennial top-25 Division One schools next year.

Free State, at 21-4, fell just short of its first state title in baseball and second overall. It advanced to the title game by routing Maize, 12-2, in the semifinals earlier Saturday, behind a three-hit, three-RBI game from Heitshusen and solid pitching by Jake Hoover.

The 21 victories were by far the most in school history.

They were one short, though, of the team’s goal from the onset of the season — a state championship.

“You don’t work as hard as we work and not feel a sense of tremendous disappointment at this juncture,” Hill said. “We ask too much of our kids for them not to feel that way. But we told them to keep their chins up and walk off like men, and they did that.”