photo by: Chance Parker

Free State senior Georgia Rea is jubilant after making a sliding catch against Olathe South during the Class 6A State Tournament. Free State won 6-0 Thursday, May 27, 2021.

Shawnee — The Free State softball team crawled one game closer to repeating as state champs on Thursday and all it took to get there was pushing past Olathe South and a 3-and-a-half hour rain delay.

As it turned out, neither was much of a problem, and the second-seeded Firebirds topped the Falcons, 6-0 at Shawnee Mission District Softball Complex.

Leading 1-0 heading the top of the fourth inning, the Firebirds were forced to head to the team bus just after 4 p.m. when lightning appeared in the area.

The game did not resume until just before 7:30. When it did, Free State (20-1) wasted no time in taking control.

The game resumed with senior ace Tatum Clopton facing a full count and on the first pitch after the delay, Clopton blew it by the Olathe South batter to record the fourth of her 11 strikeouts on the night.

“I knew that one pitch was going to set the tone for the back half of that game,” Clopton said after the victory. And that one inning really put us on track and in control.”

Added acting head coach Charley Bowen: “That was a big moment. They could’ve got some momentum if she walked there, but instead we established the momentum and never looked back.”

After easily getting out of the top of the fourth, the Firebirds blew the game open with three runs in the bottom of the inning.

Senior catcher Georgia Rea tripled to jumpstart the inning. Junior second baseman Jasmine Brixius followed with a double that drove her home. And senior shortstop Sara Roszak’s single brought Brixius to the plate. All of that came after senior Samantha Bradbury’s back-to-back stole bases while pinch running for Kay Lee Richardson, who reached base via walk.

Although the bottom of the Firebirds’ lineup finished with just two of the team’s eight hits on Thursday, a couple of them — Leah Mueller and Kinsey Clopton — hit the ball hard on multiple occasions. Early on, that forced the Falcons into fielding and throwing errors that gave Free State the upper hand.

Even though they only produced one run on four Olathe South errors through three innings, the weather delay allowed the Firebirds to gather themselves and come back to the diamond with a new approach.

“That might’ve been the best thing that happened to us,” said Tatum Clopton, who allowed just three runners on base all game and did not give up a hit until the top of the seventh. “It can be really hard to restart after something like that, but we all stayed very relaxed and also kept the energy up and then we tried to bring that back to the game.”

It worked.

In addition to the three-run fourth inning, the Firebirds added three more in the sixth. After Rea’s home run to dead center made it 5-0 Firebirds, she rounded the bases like her team was still trailing and slapped Bowen’s hand as hard as she had all season when she rounded third and headed for the plate.

“That was kind of a statement moment,” Rea said after the victory. “Before the delay, I didn’t think we were hitting that pitcher as well as we could’ve and I wanted to prove to the rest of the lineup that we can do that.”

Brixius and Roszak followed suit by ripping shots up the middle in the next two at-bats. Roszak’s double, which nearly put a hole in the fence in nearly the same spot that Rea’s home run cleared it, drove in Brixius from first base and put a bow on the senior class’ seventh consecutive win at the Class 6A state tournament.

Now, the two-time defending state champion Firebirds have put themselves in position to play for the 3-peat they’ve been thinking about for two years.

At 1 p.m. Friday, they’ll face the winner of Thursday’s late game between No. 3 seed Washburn Rural and Olathe North. A win there would move them back into the state title game.

But no one in Free State green was thinking that far ahead on Thursday night. Instead, they kept their minds fixed on the one play, one pitch, one swing at a time approach they’ve had throughout the postseason.

“It’s all about energy,” Rea said. “Whoever gets the momentum first and puts better energy out usually has the advantage so that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

Class 6A state quarterfinals

Olathe South 000 000 0 — 0 1 4

Free State 010 302 X — 6 8 0