Lawrence High sophomore Megan Wilson, left, scores the tying run in the seventh inning against Free State. The Lions eventually won, 2-1 in 13 innings, Tuesday at LHS.

Last week, Lawrence High’s softball team had little trouble rolling past rival Free State in an eight-run victory that spoiled the Firebirds’ Senior Night.

On Tuesday night, however, the Lions had to work for it.

LHS needed 13 innings to hold off the Firebirds in a marathon game that spanned nearly three hours before Lawrence’s Mallory Reynolds scored the winning run in the bottom of the 13th to give LHS a 2-1 victory.

“That was fun,” Lawrence High coach Reenie Stogsdill said. “That’s softball at its best right there.”

It was hard to disagree.

The starting pitchers from both teams — the Lions’ Lauren Massey and Free State’s Megan Smith — performed near-flawlessly.

Massey, who has pitched nearly every inning of every game for the Lions over the past two seasons, allowed just one run and struck out 11, while Smith, who suffered the loss, struck out 14.

“As I told our girls, there’s nothing to hang their heads about,” Free State coach Lee Ice said. “That was a tremendous game to play in, to coach, to watch. There’s not too many opportunities to play in a 13-inning game.”

For a good portion of the evening, the Firebirds (5-15) looked to have things wrapped up.

They scored in the top of the fifth inning when an Elizabeth Hazlett sacrifice fly allowed Courtney Parker to score from third and appeared to be in good shape with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning.

But Lions catcher Kristen Bell singled to center field to score Megan Wilson from second and tie the game at 1 — “I was so nervous,” Bell said, “but that was a situation I wanted to be in” — and thus began a five-inning stretch in which neither team could manage a run despite several promising opportunities.

The teams combined to strand 10 runners in the final six innings, as base-running miscues and a lack of timely hitting prevented either team from taking a lead.

Even the game’s winning run was the result of a botched play, as Reynolds scored only after finding herself caught in a pickle between third base and home following a blown squeeze attempt.

But the Lions, winners of six of their last eight games, weren’t complaining about another victory, particularly one against a Free State team that, before this season, had enjoyed a dominant recent advantage in the series.

“We had to get it done,” Massey said. “It was a win-or-lose situation, a make-or-break situation.

“And we made it.”