Topeka ? The crying shame about Lawrence High’s 2-0 semifinal loss to Blue Valley on Saturday was that the field it was played on did not match the talent of the athletes that played on it.

But, as the saying goes, there’s no crying in baseball.

LHS coach Brad Stoll clearly knows that.

“The playing conditions had no bearing on the outcome of the game,” Stoll said. “We lost because their kid pitched a great game and we couldn’t make adjustments. But this facility is not for a state tournament. I don’t care what the classification, the state tournament should never be played here. Our kids deserve better and their kids deserve better.”

No single play put the shortcomings of the field at Hummer Sports Complex on display more than a throw from LHS center fielder Jake Green in the bottom of the third.

After Blue Valley’s Brian Peck reached base with a walk, he advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored three batters later on a single to center.

On a proper field, Peck would’ve been gunned out at the plate. From shallow center, Green threw a perfect shot that beat Peck by six steps. But as the ball took its hop in front of the dish – in the exact spot coaches teach their outfielders to bounce it – the ball hit the lip between the dirt and the infield grass and springboarded over the catcher’s head.

“I thought it was good all the way,” Green said. “It hurts a lot more just knowing that if I had put a little more on it or taken a little off, it might have changed the outcome.”

Green deserves better than to feel that way after a terrific throw. Any athlete who makes that kind of quality play on that big of a stage deserves to be rewarded. What Green got instead was the equivalent of the rim falling off because of a loose bolt on Michael Jordan’s last-second shot against Utah in the 1998 NBA Finals.

The bad hop on Green’s throw was the same kind of hop that benefited him on Friday, when he sent a shot to third that took a similarly funky hop over the shoulder of Free State third baseman John Wilson. The bad bounce turned out to be the game-winning RBI on Friday. And again on Saturday.

“We watched every game here,” Stoll said. “And we saw four balls per game that were altered by the surface. When you take pride in your facilities like (Free State coach) Mike (Hill) and I do, it’s tough to play at a place like this. But the complaints have to come from the winning team, and all of the coaches here are going to get together this summer and get this thing figured out. We’ve already talked about it.”

It wasn’t just the grass that made the field second-rate. Saturday’s semis were played with no scoreboard, no concession stand and no convenient restrooms. That was the fault of Mother Nature, as lightning rocked the Hummer Park concession stand that morning.

Not moving the game or scheduling it at a better facility in the first place, however, was the fault of the Kansas State High School Activities Association.

No one can say for certain that the Lions would have won Saturday if Green’s throw had taken a true hop. But no one can say they wouldn’t have either.