The Battlefield softball team has one goal this season that trumps all others: win the Group AAA state championship. Period.

What path the Bobcats follow to reach that end is essentially a footnote to the overarching theme of 2009, which is reversing the outcome of the last game, the state finals, from 2008.

There has been reason to celebrate a bit early this year when Battlefield won the Cedar Run District regular season and tournament crowns. Losing to district-rival Loudoun Valley 3-2 on Saturday in the Northwest Region title match proved the Bobcats are still quite fallible and cannot expect their opposition to curl up and die.

But giving up a title on the way back to the big time really only amounted to whether Battlefield would hit the road in the first round of states or host the game in Haymarket.

Most importantly, the girls earned the right to return to the elite eight last Thursday night when they decked Western Valley District runner-up Halifax 10-1 at home in the regional semi-finals.

Senior hurler Brittany Black struck out 13 batters in the complete-game effort, giving up a lone inside-the-park home run to Stephanie Clark after Battlefield already established a lead.

"We knew the pitcher. We saw her earlier. We knew she had a good rise ball," said Halifax second baseman Lyndsay Lawter.

Black turned a negative emotion into something positive after she said she heard some pre-game smack talking from the other side about whether Battlefield really deserved to have NCAA Division I-A-bound players. Black is headed to Austin Peay State University (Tenn.) in the fall while her battery mate Courtney Liddle is set to play for Virginia Tech.

"Hearing what they say kind of made us all definitely want to show them that they are wrong," said Black.

That would be classified under confidence instead of cockiness, a concept manager Joe Schelzo has stressed all year.

" And showing up, being confident in your skills: that's great. Cockiness isn't," he said.

Meanwhile, the defense turned out an exceptionally strong performance, with second baseman Jessica Anglin coming through in clutch situations late in the game.

Streaks of dirt dominated her uniform by the end of the game just from making diving catches alone. Anglin fittingly managed to field the game-winner in the top of the seventh, a 1-2 grounder to second that she flipped to first baseman Shannon Cleary for the final out that granted Battlefield a return to states.

"Jess is a very solid defender. She has a good arm. I really don't have to worry about her making bad throws. And I know that she can get to balls that I can't get to. She always has my back," said Cleary.

The proverbial cherry on top of the state-qualifying sundae came from defeating the same team that ended Battlefield's first-ever run toward states back in 2007 when the Comets topped the Bobcats 1-0 in the regional semi-finals.

"We knew that we had to beat them because they beat us on our field two years ago," said Cleary. "And I wasn't here two years ago, but I knew it meant everything to everybody else on the team. There was no way they were beating us here."