If it’s revenge the Lions want, they’ll certainly get their chance.

That much was learned Friday, when the Kansas State High School Activities Association released this year’s bracket for the Class 6A state baseball championships.

Slotted into the No. 4 spot, on the top half of the bracket, was Lawrence High (18-4). Penciled into the No. 5 spot, and therein called upon to take on LHS in Round 1 on Friday, was Blue Valley (17-4), an all-too-familiar foe for the Lions.

“We like the draw just because we’re familiar with the opponent,” LHS coach Brad Stoll said. “That helps. We feel like we have a good comfort-level with their strengths and weaknesses, but, you know, they could probably say the same thing.”

LHS and Blue Valley met in the semifinals of last year’s state tournament, with the Tigers knocking the Lions out of the tournament with a 2-0 victory. Blue Valley went on to win the state title and the Lions, for the second year in a row, went home with third. Stoll said the memories of that painful loss have stayed with his team.

“It has,” he said. “That was the eliminator and we just got completely shut down offensively and we were a little embarrassed by that. We might have got a little revenge in the River City Classic (in which LHS defeated Blue Valley, 8-7, on April 16) but this is a little bigger stakes.”

The Lions and Tigers will meet at 1:30 p.m. Friday, with the winner advancing to Saturday’s semifinals, where a 10 a.m. date with the winner of the game between top-seeded Goddard (20-2) and No. 8 seed Olathe South (15-7) would await.

O-South and LHS are just two of four representatives from the tradition-rich Sunflower League in this year’s eight-team field.

This year’s state tourney will be played at 3&2 Baseball Complex in Lenexa. The other Round-1 matchups feature No. 2 Maize (19-2) vs. No. 7 Olathe Northwest (15-7) and No. 3 Wichita Northwest (18-3) vs. No. 6 Shawnee Mission West (17-5).