photo by: Nick Krug

Free State's Georgia Rea picks up Sara Roszak after Roszak's fifth-inning home run to give the Firebirds the lead over Blue Valley on Thursday, May 24, 2018 at Arrocha Ballpark. Rea hit the game-tying home run just before.

A game that began and ended with fireworks all over the field and was the pitcher’s duel many expected in between went to the eighth-seeded Free State softball team, 2-1 over top-seeded Blue Valley, in the opening round of the Class 6A state tournament on Thursday at Arrocha Ballpark.

Back-to-back solo home runs from freshmen Georgia Rea and Sara Roszak in the top of the sixth inning propelled the Firebirds to the thrilling one-run victory and ace pitcher Tatum Clopton, another freshman, tamed the Tigers for seven innings to move Free State (16-7) into Friday’s semifinals.

“After that last out in the fifth inning, we were all really fired up and ready to get our bats going,” said Roszak, who hit her fifth home run of the seasons, a towering shot to left field that landed about 40 feet farther than the one by Rea — her first of the year — just a few pitches earlier.

“Sara came up to me after that and goes, ‘Anything you can do I can do better,’ Rea joked after the victory.

The two solo blasts to lead off the sixth accounted for 67 percent of Free State’s hits on the day.

After surrendering a lead-off double to Rea to open the game and using a pair of pop-ups and a strikeout to get out of the bases-loaded jam in the top of the first inning, Blue Valley senior Grace Garcia retired the Firebirds in order for the next four innings before disaster struck in the sixth.

Garcia, who struck out the final batter of all seven innings, feasted on the bottom of the Free State lineup, recording eight of her nine strikeouts against the Firebirds’ six through nine batters.

But with the season on the line and the top of their order up, the Firebirds got two massive swings from Rea and Roszak to completely change the way the final two innings were played.

“She’s a really good pitcher,” Rea said of Garcia, who is headed to South Dakota for college. “I just went up there trying to get my mind right that, yeah, I can hit. She made a mistake on that one pitch. It was right down the middle with no movement.”

As she rounded first base and watched the ball sail over the left field fence to tie the game, Rea threw one hand in the air while one thought kept running through her mind.

“Wow. We’re at state and that was a home run,” she said.

Roszak had similar thoughts after launching her game winner to left but hers arrived a few steps sooner.

“I saw all kinds of energy from our first base coach and I just kind of though, ‘I guess I just did that.’ But I was really excited about it.”

Clopton, who hit .530 this season with four home runs followed Rea and Roszak in the batting order but she said her mind was focused solely on her job on the mound when she stepped into the batter’s box after the two home runs.

“Back-to-back-to-back would have been nice,” Clopton said. “But at the time I was really thinking about pitching. My main job was to get the outs.”

That she did in the bottom of the sixth, retiring Blue Valley one-two-three with two groundouts and a pop-out to right.

That pop out may very well have been the at-bat of the day. Facing Garcia, Blue Valley’s clean-up hitter who had just given up the lead in the top of the inning, Clopton blew the first pitch by her, buckled her knees with a nasty change-up on the second pitch and then got the fly ball to right to end the inning.

As soon as Free State right fielder Taylor Burks made the grab, Clopton soared into the air and roared into the Free State dug out.

“That was big,” she said of retiring Garcia. “I knew she could tie it up with one swing and you could tell by her practice swings that she was ready to hit one over the fence. I was ready to not let her.”

Clopton, who struck out 16 batters in Free State’s regional title game victory last week, fanned six on Thursday and said she did not have her best stuff.

“But that could be a good thing,” she noted after the victory. “We’re just all really looking forward to (Friday) and are happy we’re still playing.”

That dream became a reality in dramatic fashion, when third baseman Lauryn Jones, who was rock solid at the hot corner all day, made a diving grab near the wall in foul territory to end the game and spark the celebration. Jones, a junior, also walked twice in the clean-up spot for the Free State offense.

After getting their leadoff batter aboard via a hit-by-pitch in the bottom of the seventh, the Tigers (21-2) nearly tied the game in their final at-bat, pushing a runner all the way to third base before Clopton and company slammed the door.

“It’s never easy,” Clopton said after the victory. “And at this point in the season, you have to be as close to perfect as you can.”

The Firebirds were that when it mattered on Thursday and now are just one win away from playing for a state title.