Lakeland Christian thought winning the school's first state softball title last year was exciting.
They discovered winning back-to-back titles is twice as nice. The journey was so fun, Lakeland Christian extended it to nine innings with a 9-1 win over University Christian in the Class 3A State Softball Championship.
This year's title game was a rematch of the last year's state semifinal, which Lakeland Christian won, 4-1, enroute to the title.
Both starting pitchers - Lakeland Christian's Kristen Beacham and University Christian's Tracy Caccavale - were on point.
The game was scoreless until the fourth inning when two Lakeland Christian throwing errors led to a Fightin' Christians run. The Vikings answered in the top of the fifth with Beacham's solo home run over the left field run.
Lakeland Christian had an opportunity to take the lead in the top of the sixth. The Vikings loaded the bases, but University Christian was able to get out of the jam.
In the bottom of the seventh, University Christian put runners on first and second with no outs. Beacham got the first out with a strike out. The second out advanced runners to second and third.
But Beacham came through again with another strikeout to send the game to extra innings.
Lakeland Christian went three up, three down in the top of the eighth. University Christian got a pair of runners on in the bottom of the eighth. One was tagged out at first, the other tagged out stealing second.
That set the stage for the eight-run ninth inning for the Vikings.
Brooke Benton started things off with a single to right field. Beacham followed that with a walk. And then Caroline Watson laid down a perfect bunt to load the bases.
Erica Stahl followed with another great bunt that scored a run and gave the Vikings a 2-1 lead. Amy Burton's sac fly to left field scored another run.
Camryn Wineinger put an exclamation point on the Vikings' ninth-inning rally with a three-run blast over the center field wall for a 6-1 lead. Then Benton tacked on two more with a two-run triple. Beacham's RBI single made it 9-1.
University Christian didn't have an answer in the bottom of the ninth and Lakeland Christian started the celebration.