State powerhouses Barbe and Sam Houston have played many high-stakes baseball games against each other throughout the years.

There have been games with district title implications, plus an 11-inning semifinal and a state championship game that produced some of the most-attended games in state tournament history.

Today’s game will be the start of something different. Instead of a one-off game, the No. 2 Bucs (34-4) and No. 11 Broncos (30-7) will meet for the first time in a best-of-three playoff series for the right to play in next week’s Non-select Division I championship series in Sulphur.

“I am so excited,” Barbe head coach Glenn Cecchini said. “It is the first time you have a two-out-of-three in the semifinals.

“I am excited that we are getting to play at home. I have the utmost respect for Sam Houston. They are one of the top programs in the state, year in and year out. They have been good for a long time. It is going to be a great series. I love it. It is going to be epic.”

Game one starts at 6 p.m. today and Game 2 on at 6 p.m. Friday. The third game, if necessary, will be played at 1 p.m. Saturday.

Cecchini said hundreds of seats have been added to the Bucs’ stadium in anticipation of a large crowd. Gates will open at 4 p.m. on Thursday and Friday. Tickets can only be purchased online at gofan.com.

In 2019, Barbe beat Sam Houston 8-2 in the Class 5A state championship game, then won a 1-0 extra-inning thriller in the semifinals in 2021. The teams split every regular-season game since 2017, until the Bucs won both this season, 1-0 and 5-1.

“I thought both games were competitive,” Sam Houston head coach Chad Hebert said. “I definitely feel like we missed opportunities in the first game in the regular season, and they just beat us in the second game.

“So I think we’ll be fine. We’re playing good baseball right now, so I think it’ll be a good competitive series.”

Hebert said his team will have to take advantage of every hit and baserunner against Bucs’ lefties, Jairus Miller and Lawton Little. In the postseason, the pair have been stellar with no runs allowed in 28 innings. Both have more than 100 strikeouts. Miller is 13-0, while Littleton is 10-1 and hasn’t given up an earned run in his last five starts.

“We’ve got to lay off the fastball up,” Hebert said. “Lawton Littleton really got us on that early in the game at Barbe.

“And then, just against Jairus, we just had some mishaps in that game that kept us off the scoreboard, so just clean those kinds of things up.”

Sam Houston left 11 runners stranded against Barbe in the regular season.

“What I stress to our guys, just keep getting in the batter’s box, just keep competing,” Hebert said. “It’s not how many hits you get, it’s how many times you get the first. And if we can put our foot on first and our foot on the plate, we’ll be fine.”