Wichita ? Home runs were the bookends of a combined three-run game in Free State softball’s first round match-up with Olathe East.

Unfortunately for the Firebirds, Olathe East got the walk-off home run to send FSHS packing up early in a 2-1 loss in eight innings.

“I’m so proud of us, that we came out and played the way we did,” Free State’s Brooke Abney said. “I know that if we were playing anyone else the first game, we wouldn’t have tried nearly as hard.”

Abney put the Firebirds on top early with a shot to left field off player of the year Alex Hopp – suitably, it was Hopp who hit the walk-off homer out to left.

“I don’t know, I just felt it,” Abney said. “That pitch, I knew that it was going to be coming in. I knew that pitch I was going to hit it, and then it just went out, and it felt good. I knew it was out right when I hit it.”

But after a line-drive by Maggie Hill hit Hopp, the O-East starter retired the next 12 batters, striking out nine of the 12.

Pushing the two-seed – and two-time defending state champs – to the brink of elimination had coach Pam Pine at a high level of emotion.

“I’m so proud of the girls; they did a great job,” Pine said. “That’s the way it goes. It can just be one pitch or one bad inning or anything. It just went their way today. We had several chances, and we couldn’t get runners across when we needed to. But I thought that was a great game, so I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed coaching.”

That included the potential go-ahead run in the top of the eighth. However, freshman starter Hill was thrown out at home on Aleese Kopf’s grounder to first.

The lone error in the game resulted in the East’s first run, but other than that, the Free State defense held tough under the lead of second baseman Olivia Abney.

“I wasn’t getting it done at the plate, so I knew that I needed to help my team defensively, and that’s one thing that I can really control, and I could just see the ball well in the field.”

Expectations for the softball squad for next year are already at a high level. Pitcher Summer Mulford is the only departing player.

“Everyone’s going to expect us to be one of the elite teams in Kansas, and I expect that, too,” Olivia Abney said. “It’s going to be really hard to replace someone like Summer, just the person she is and the player. But I think that we have a really good chance of coming back here and winning it next year.”

After her two-run, four-strikeout game, Mulford said the team could definitely make a run at state next year.

“They’re going to be really strong,” the lone Firebirds senior said. “I’m going to be out in the crowd a lot. But they’re going to do well, I think.”