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The second time it happened was the killer.

"We weren't able to overcome that," Bugger said. "It was a bad day to be so-so."

Triad's bid for the first state championship game appearance in program history ended with an 11-6 loss to Burbank St. Laurence in a Class 3A state semifinal Friday morning.

St. Laurence (36-5) led 8-0 through four innings and advanced to face Lisle Benet Academy (27-12) at 1 p.m. Saturday in the state final.

"Give them credit — they beat us," Bugger said. "They threw well, hit well, pretty much outplayed us."

Triad (34-7) will play at 10 a.m. Saturday in the Class 3A third-place game against Cary-Grove (25-13).

A win would give the Knights their highest state finish. They were fourth in both 2012 and 2018.

The Vikings scored four runs in the second inning, all with two outs and the first two coming with the batters down to their final strike.

"They have a great two-strike approach," Triad senior Hayden Bernreuter said. "I couldn't really get it by them."

St. Laurence sent nine batters to plate in the second against Bernreuter, who struck out two and walked three in the inning.

Senior designated hitter Connor Marino, who finished the game with four RBI, drove in his first two to make it 3-0 on a single.

"We definitely saw that up and down the lineup, they were going to widen out and shorten up and try to refuse to strike out," Bugger said. "They did a nice job of putting the ball into right field quite a bit."

St. Laurence's second four spot on the scoreboard came in the fourth, and again all four runs were scored with two outs. 

Vikings junior Mikey Lotus, who went 3 for 4, started the two-out rally with a screaming double down the line before Daniel Coyle took advantage of a two-base error.

Junior Adrian Perez and senior Ben Geary slammed back-to-back doubles to nearly provide the death-knell.

The eight runs were enough for St. Laurence sophomore left-hander Jimmy Benson.

Bugger knew a lefty waited for the Knights somewhere in the postseason, and Benson proved to be a matchup nightmare.

"He's a little different — 6-foot-8, the angles are a little bit different, and he did a nice job," Bugger said. "He ran the two-seam in quite a bit. We struggled to adjust, too. Tough matchups are going to happen."

Seeing the number of left-handed hitters in Triad's lineup, St. Laurence coach Pete Lotus knew early Benson would be his starter.

"We thought that'd be to our advantage, and it worked out," Lotus said. "You don't see that many lefties in a lineup normally. ... You could tell they weren't that comfortable, especially early on."

Facing a Triad lineup that featured six left-handed batters, Benson collected the win, going 5 2-3 innings, giving up three runs on seven hits and striking out six. 

The Knights figured out the sophomore late, scoring three runs against him in the bottom of the sixth inning before sophomore Keegan Seipp blasted a three-run home run over the right-field fence in the bottom half of the seventh off a reliever.

Seipp's sixth home run of the season, a team high, came in the at-bat after getting hit by a pitch his previous at-bat.

"It felt pretty good," Seipp said. 

Bernreuter, Hayden Bugger and Carter Gaskill all had two hits for the Knights.

The five-run loss was the most lopsided loss of the season for Triad. 

Triad, already with a program-record wins in a season, will look to bounce back on Saturday morning.

"Our last day together is (Saturday)," Bugger said. "We want to make it as positive and as close to the way the regular season went down for us."