Lenexa ? The Lawrence High baseball team saddled the rocket arms of three standout pitchers all season, a wild ride that ended Saturday with the Lions being crowned the 2009 Class 6A state champions at 3&2 Baseball Complex in Lenexa.

But when the Lions were down to their final chips, it was senior catcher Jake Green who made the team’s biggest throw of the season.

He hides behind a mask, shin guards and a fire-red chest protector.

Most days, because of the superstars that surround him on the field, you don’t pay Green a second look.

Who notices a catcher who limits his on-the-field antics to calling pitches, making plays and recording outs? Isn’t it more fun to watch the guy behind the plate emphatically fire it down to third after a strikeout or zip throw after throw back to the pitcher as if auditioning for his own spot on the mound?

Not if you’re talking about Green, it’s not. Not because he won’t, though. Mostly because he can’t.

In what was arguably the biggest play of the Lions’ season, Green shrugged off the shooting pain in his throwing shoulder and threw behind Shawnee Mission West’s Ryan Reno at second base in the top of the seventh after the Vikings, who trailed 3-2, had put runners at first and second with no outs to begin their last inning.

The pickoff, which came after a failed bunt attempt, stole the momentum from the Vikings and put it firmly back on the Lions’ side of the diamond, where it stayed for the rest of the day.

“Jake’s play, that was the play of the game,” Minnis said. “He can’t throw it back to me, and for him to do that…”

By saying “can’t throw it back to me,” Minnis is not mixing words. On every toss back to the mound for the past several weeks, Green has lobbed the ball back to his pitcher. It’s not that he can’t throw, it’s just that the Lions can’t afford him to.

“I can’t say enough about Jake Green,” LHS coach Brad Stoll said. “We don’t throw the ball around the horn after we strike somebody out, and he can barely get the ball back to the mound. He hasn’t played long toss in weeks. He’s so beat up. But when we need a strike, he throws a strike.”

There was never a doubt from anyone in the Lions’ dugout that the throw would be right on the money. The throw was so good, if you had stacked five pennies on top of each other near the bag and asked Green to knock off only the top one, he would’ve done it.

“He wasn’t going to throw an errant throw on that,” Stoll said. “It was going to be on the bag, and it was.”

The throw itself caused an ache in Green’s shoulder that he could not describe. But the only pain he felt afterwards was from the bruises and blows that came during the Lions’ celebratory dogpile between home plate and the mound.

“(That throw) was so bittersweet it’s unbelievable,” Green said. “Every time I throw it’s painful. But it got to the point where I knew it was going to be painful so I just tried to fight through it when I could and make the throws that I could. You have to believe in what you can do and most of the time good things happen.”

LHS pitchers Albert Minnis, Dorian Green and Andy Urban were fantastic this weekend. They deserve any and all praise that can be thrown their way. Each picked up a win this weekend, Minnis added a save, and all three pitched and competed as if they would’ve thrown until their arms fell off.

But in the end, it was the guy those three pitch to — whose arm nearly did fall off — that made the biggest play of the weekend.

“He won the black-and-blue award at our banquet and no play shows why more than that play right there,” Urban said.

Because of it, the Lions are, and forever will be, state champions.

“Now we get to go back in the gym and see 2009 baseball on the banners,” Jake Green said. “It’s gonna be there forever. We’re part of history now.”