Free State head baseball coach Mike Hill, right, has solid support from his coaching staff that has taken the Firebirds to the state tournament in six of the past eight seasons. The coaches are, from left, Bobby Nichols, first base and infield; Layne Meyer, pitching; and Brad Romme, outfield.

Scroll through the resume of the Free State High baseball team over the course of the past decade, and you won’t find many holes.

Today, the Firebirds will be making their sixth state tournament appearance in the past eight seasons. They’ve won Sunflower League titles in all but two of the past eight seasons. They’ve regularly been ranked nationally despite being located in a region not typically associated with elite prep baseball.

They’ve become, in a relatively short amount of time, the gold standard for high school baseball in the state.

Free State’s pitching staff, from left: sophomore JD Prochaska, senior Hayden Emerson, senior Eric Anderson, senior Rob Wagner, junior Colin Toalson, junior Cody Kukuk, senior Ryan Scott and senior Greg Davis.

“It all starts with coach Hill,” said Kansas University coach Ritch Price, whose roster features five former Free State players, including son Robby. “He’s done an absolutely phenomenal job with that program. In the eight years I’ve been in Kansas, they’ve been without question the premier baseball program in the state.”

Look at what Hill and his staff have accomplished over the past 13 years, and it’s hard to argue with Price’s logic.

Along with assistants Layne Meyer, Bobby Nichols and Brad Romme, Hill has turned Free State into a perennial winner, a staple of the Class 6A state tournament that this year will be played at Kansas University’s Hoglund Ballpark.

Those within the program attribute the continued success to a number of factors — the implementation of summer baseball programs; a recently constructed synthetic-turf field that allows for nearly year-round practice; a tendency to sweat the small stuff.

“There’s a lot of stuff to worry about in baseball,” senior pitcher Hayden Emerson said. “But the little things that you can control, like coach says, we’re going to make sure we’re good at those.”

Of course, it never hurts to have talented players and supportive parents — both of which, Hill assures, have been plentiful during his tenure.

The list of program alumni, for instance, is rife with Div. I athletes, including current Kansas players Travis Blankenship, Brett Lisher and Robby Price, who was recently named first-team All-Big 12 by the league’s coaches, while current Firebirds junior Cody Kukuk is committed to play for the Jayhawks, as well.

At the same time, it’s hard to ignore the culture that has been constructed at Free State, one in which success has become expected and the goal each year, more or less, is to win a state title.

“I coached and played football at Lawrence High, and it was ingrained in you there,” Hill said. “You knew you were going to play for the state championship every year, and when you didn’t, it was a shock. You felt like you let the team down and the school down and the community down.”

A similar mind-set, it seems, has taken form within the Firebirds’ baseball program.

And while it will take two days of near-flawless baseball to collect the program’s second state title in five years, it’s difficult to bet against a Hill-coached team, particularly when it comes to the postseason.

“(Hill) is one of the most well-organized coaches in America,” Price said. “He’s got some high-quality assistants, he runs a fall program, summer program.

“He has a plan in place to help those kids improve from the time they walk onto campus until the time they graduate.”