When the pairings for the Class 6A state baseball tournament were released last week, Lawrence High coach Brad Stoll couldn’t help but smile.

Sitting opposite the fourth-seeded Lions (18-4) in the 4-vs.-5 matchup on the bracket was none other than Blue Valley (17-4), a team LHS has more than its share of history with during the past couple of seasons.

For starters, there’s the game in last year’s state tournament. En route to winning the state title, Blue Valley knocked off LHS, 2-0, and sent the Lions to third place for the second straight season.

Then there’s the game that took place in April at the River City Festival. After jumping out to an early lead, the Lions fell behind and then came back to win in dramatic fashion. At the time, the 8-7 victory was a nice taste of revenge. But it’s nothing compared with what will be on the line at 1:30 p.m. today at 3&2 Baseball Complex in Lenexa.

“You can spin it a whole bunch of different ways,” Stoll said. “But the bottom line is that’s the best first-round matchup in the entire tournament, and we’re both going to be ready to go. We’ve got the revenge factor going for us a little, but they’ve got the prize we want.”

Although getting back to the state tourney was the Lions’ goal all season, it almost didn’t happen. LHS needed late-inning heroics to knock off both Topeka High and Free State last week just to survive its regional.

Similarly, Blue Valley also ran into trouble at regionals, as the Tigers overcame a scare from Shawnee Mission Northwest to win their regional title game, 7-6.

None of that matters now, though. Now that both teams have made it to state, the goal is to win it all.

“I don’t think we’ll be too overly amped up because we’ve got our eyes on the big prize at the end,” Stoll said. “We’re in it to win the whole thing.”

As they’ve done all season, the Lions — winners of 13 straight games — will rely on pitching and defense to navigate their way through the field.

Junior lefty Albert Minnis gets the start on the mound in Game 1, an honor the underclassman is not overlooking.

“That means a lot,” Minnis said. “It’s nice to know that the coaching staff and the team has faith in me. This game obviously means a little bit more than all the others, but I don’t know if there can be any more adrenaline. I’m always pretty pumped up when I hit the mound.”

Minnis takes a 6-0 record and a nearly invisible 0.65 earned-run average into today’s opener. The southpaw did not pitch in the April meeting with Blue Valley, something Stoll thinks benefits his team a great deal.

“It’s a big advantage any time you can throw a guy who teams haven’t seen,” Stoll said. “They know what Albert’s done and they know who he is, but they haven’t faced him and that’s huge.”

Although the Lions say they have complete faith in Minnis’ ability to keep the Blue Valley bats quiet, they’re hoping for a on offensive rebirth this weekend. The Lions scored five runs and managed just seven hits in two regional games last week. In addition, LHS has averaged just four runs per game in its past 10 contests.

“We hope our bats wake up,” said senior Jake Green. We’ve been relying so much on our pitching and our defense this year. We don’t want to have to rely on that as much this weekend. At the same time, though, if we can get four or five runs, we’d feel safe with that.”

Pitching, offense and defense aside, the one thing the Lions are counting on more than anything else at this year’s state tournament is a roster dripping with experience and the confidence that comes attached to that.

“We’ve got nine seniors on this team that have all been there before and because of that we’re real confident. We don’t want to go out with third again. We don’t want to end that way. We want to win a state title.”

Driving Directions to 3&2

1. Travel east on K-10 for approximately 24 miles

2. Exit at K-7 and head north for approximately 2.4 miles.

3. Exit off of K-7 onto W. 83rd Street and turn right (east).

4. Travel east on 83rd Street (which turns into 87th) for approximately 3 miles. The complex will be on your left-hand side and the game will be played on Field 1 at the East Complex.