Jefferson City Lady Jays coach Lisa Dey compares her team's postseason run to that of the Kansas City Royals.
Both teams have been the underdog throughout the playoffs, yet both have defied the odds to be in the position they're in now.
Jefferson City will look to extend its winning streak a little further when the Lady Jays (19-7) take on Lee's Summit (24-6) at 11 a.m. today in a Class 4 semifinal game at the Killian Softball Complex in Springfield.
Dey knows Jefferson City's late-season success has surprised, well, more than a few people.
"I think a few people would probably be an understatement," Dey said Wednesday. "Do I think we have surprised a whole lot of people? I think there's no doubt. We are the underdog - kind of like the Royals."
Just like Kansas City's path to the World Series, the Lady Jays' road to the Final Four wasn't an easy one.
Jefferson City won its district as the No. 1 seed, but the Lady Jays faced their biggest test of the season when they met Blue Springs - a team that was 29-1 at the time - in sectionals.
"The night we sat down before we played Blue Springs I told (our team), "We're not supposed to win this game. We're the underdog,'" Dey said. "They come in here, they've got one loss and quite honestly, they were supposed to go on and win state."
Jefferson City prevailed.
Alyssa Schulte threw a complete-game shutout and Hannah Hirschvogel drove in the go-ahead run in the top of the seventh as the Lady Jays extended their season with a 1-0 win.
Dey got in her car after the victory and had received 35 text messages and a few emails.
"They were saying, "Give us your secret. How did you get Blue Springs?'" Dey said. "Everybody was picking them - that was the team to go all the way."
The Lady Jays didn't stop after knocking off the Wildcats.
Schulte followed up her sectional performance by throwing a two-hit shutout to help lift Jefferson City to a 5-0 win against Ozark (27-4).
"Everyone thought we were the underdog and we weren't going to come out on top of a lot of our games," said Schulte, who is 12-5 with a 2.36 ERA this season after sitting out most of her sophomore year with an injury.
It will be Schulte's first trip to the Final Four as a player, but the junior has been to the championship round before. Her sister, Brailee, was a sophomore on the 2009 team that won a state title, and her oldest sister, Carinda, was a member of the 2006 team that fell to Rockwood Summit in the state championship game.
"Getting to follow in their footsteps is a really cool experience," Alyssa Schulte said. "To be able to do the same thing and make them proud, and my whole family proud, it's a really neat experience."
While the Lady Jays have had success throughout most of the season, things weren't going their way late in the year. Jefferson City went 1-3 in the Carthage Tournament before bouncing back with an 8-4 win against Helias in the final game of the regular season.
"We really just had to put that (tournament) behind us," Schulte said. "You can't go back and change the past. We all had our mistakes, including me. I did not have a good weekend at all. You just have to push that aside and go forward."
Jefferson City outscored Camdenton and Waynesville 17-4 to get out of its district, on its way to the sectional round.
Dey received a phone call from Ozark head coach Yancey Little, offering his congratulations, after the Lady Jays beat Blue Springs.
"You could tell in his voice that he was excited," Dey said. "I can see from his perspective. He didn't want to play Blue Springs. (Ozark) was in the Carthage Tournament and they probably saw how we did, and thought (the win against Blue Springs) was a fluke."
Turns out, it wasn't.
"There's been so much doubt against us in the postseason, and I think we've just taken that doubt and turned it into momentum and fire for us to win," said senior catcher Brooke Rozier, who leads the team with a .423 average, 30 RBI and seven home runs.
"No one ever expected us to do this, and I really don't think we expected it out of ourselves. But now that it's happening, we definitely want to keep that drive going."
The Lady Jays know they have another tough test ahead of them.
Lee's Summit escaped its district as the No. 1 seed, won a 4-3 game that went eight innings against Belton (25-7), and is coming off a 13-0 victory against Liberty North (28-4) in the quarterfinals.
"I definitely feel like our team is capable of doing anything we want to, but you know, we were the underdogs and no one expected us to make it this far," senior third baseman Darby Brundage said. "I'm just really proud of everybody.
"We've got tons of momentum and we know what we can do. We're ready to go do."