Free State pitcher JD Prochaska delivers a pitch in this April 15 file photo at Hoglund Ballpark. The Firebirds will open play at the Class 6A state tournament on Friday at the nearby Kansas University facility.

Entering a deep Class 6A state baseball tournament in which any team, seemingly, is capable of beating any other on any given day, members of the field are certainly willing to take any edge they can get.

Which is why fourth-seeded Free State isn’t exactly complaining that this year’s tournament will take place five minutes down the road from its own field, at Kansas University’s Hoglund Ballpark — a stadium with which the Firebirds have grown intimately familiar over the past couple of years.

“I sure don’t think it hurts,” said FSHS coach Mike Hill, whose Firebirds (18-4) take the field at 6:30 p.m. Friday for their first-round matchup with fifth-seeded Wichita Northwest. “We’ve played three games there this year already, played there in the summer. These kids are no stranger to that place.”

They’ve also enjoyed a good amount of success there recently.

In three games at the Hog’ this spring, the Firebirds were 3-0, including two victories in April’s River City Baseball Festival and a 7-5 victory over defending Class 6A champion Lawrence High two weeks ago.

“I think in the past two years, we’ve played there four or five times,” said FSHS pitcher Hayden Emerson. “And the fact that it’s in Lawrence pretty much makes it a home field advantage.”

Added fellow pitcher Rob Wagner: “It’s a big home field advantage. We travel five or 10 minutes, and we’re there.”

As Hill noted this week, foreign stadiums — particularly ones as nice as the facility at KU — can be a bit unnerving for prep players who haven’t played in them before, and the fact that the Firebirds have had the opportunity to take the field at Hoglund before should nullify the initial shock of playing in a collegiate venue.

“Don’t think for a minute that the environment can’t have an impact on a kid,” Hill said. “You go into a stadium like that for the first time, with the video board and the stands, and it has an effect.”

At the same time, Free State isn’t exactly planning a state title parade based on a little home field advantage.

While familiarity with the tournament’s site doesn’t hurt, it’s executing in the manner in which they have all season — that, and a little luck — that will ultimately determine how long the Firebirds last this weekend.

“Once you get to the state tournament, it’s a crapshoot,” Hill said. “In 2006, we had our most talent-laden team and we won it. But in ’05, we had as talented a team as any and we lost.

“So it’s a crapshoot, that’s the best way to describe it.”