For the first time in five years the Valley Falls baseball team is headed back to the state tournament after a thrilling 5-1 win over Maur Hill-Mount Academy in the 2-1A Regional Championship Tuesday night.

It was the rubber match between the two-loss teams that split their season series and split a league title this season and through the first three innings it was a pitchers dual with the game scoreless and only one hit between the two sides.

In the fourth though is when Valley Falls took an early lead as the Dragons plated two runs on an RBI-double from Denton Elias and an infield single from Brennen Miller that scored another.

The Ravens responded with a run in the bottom of the inning as Drew Caudle picked up the Ravens first hit blasted a two-run home run to right field to make it a 2-1 Dragon lead.

Both teams went scoreless in the fifth and then in the sixth Valley Falls tacked on another run taking advantage of a Raven error which was the only one of the game.

Maur Hill-Mount Academy came back in the bottom of sixth and had a chance to tie the game with runners at second and third with only one out, but Avery Gatzemeyer got a strikeout of Aaron Noll and a groundout of Kolbrin Korbelik to keep the Ravens off the board.

Valley Falls would get two more insurance runs in the seventh on a sacrifice fly from Gatzemeyer and an RBI-single from Trenton Kraxner, while Gatzemeyer struck out two in the bottom of the seventh to preserve the win.

He was lights out for the Dragons on the mound tossing the complete game allowing just one run on three hits with seven strikeouts, while he was on base all three times he came to the plate, collecting two hits and scoring one run with an RBI.

Kraxner was also 3-for-4 with a double, an RBI and two runs scored while Brennen Miller added one hit and an RBI.

Maur Hill-Mount Academy had Drew Caudle and Parrish Beagle combine for the loss on the mound as the two combined to allow five runs on 10 hits with Caudle recording nine strikeouts.

For the Ravens they end with a 20-3 record and for the fourth straight year fall one win shy of reaching the state tournament.

Valley Falls now heads to the state tournament in Great Bend next week with a record of 19-2 and await their seeding and opponent with the bracket to be released late this week.