Ready or not, here the playoffs come.

Lake Travis (26-3, 10-0) sealed an undefeated district run Friday night with some late-inning heroics, coming back from a three-run deficit in the bottom of the seventh inning to top Marble Falls 5-3.

That win followed a nail-biter against Hutto that Cavs won 4-3.

“It was awesome. I think our last two district games, I was really glad we got to see two really tough pitchers in [Hutto’s] Brett Higginbotham and [Marble Falls’] Casey Goodman,” Lake Travis shortstop Andy Holt said. “And I was really happy we had tough games. We had to come back in both. I think we can look back and draw from that experience once we’re in the playoffs and seeing good pitching. Sometimes, three runs is all you’re going to score against tough teams, and we’re playing better defense to make sure we keep those runs to a minimum.”

The Cavaliers will be hard pressed to find pitchers as tough as Goodman in the playoffs, but when they do, it certainly won’t hurt to have had the odds stacked against them earlier in the season. Especially when it wasn’t just the pure stuff in Goodman’s arsenal that got Lake Travis into trouble, but also the command.

“He was throwing outside most of the time, didn’t challenge inside, had a great change up and we struggled for most of the game. But we managed to pull it off in the end,” Holt said. “I thought we were going to beat them pretty soundly, but Goodman was probably the best pitcher we’ve faced this year.”

The Cavaliers now know they’ll face Lanier in the opening round of the playoffs, in a best-of-three series beginning next Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at Lake Travis High School. The Knights are the fourth seed out of District 26-4A, which was won handily by Lake Travis rival Dripping Springs.

The first round matchup is a new experience for the Cavaliers, after two years of first-round byes. The University Interscholastic League’s realignment now allows four teams from each district into the playoffs instead of three, eliminating first week byes for district champions. Now, instead of scheduling a slate of warm-up games to prepare for a second round series, the Cavaliers will jump right into the fray, with one possibly warm-up against Cedar Park.

“I kind of like playing a team that’s maybe not as tough early on because I think it can help us warm up a bit and get rolling,” Holt said. “I think if you go in against a team that’s really tough right away, you can build it up too much in your head, maybe put the game on a pedestal. This way, we just know if we come out and do our job and play our game, we should come out on top.”

But Holt also knows that any team can strike on any given day.

“Honestly, playing a team that might have one good pitcher can be scary in a one-game series,” he said. “I think it’s better we’re playing a three-game series. We can play our style and just go with it. They can’t catch us in one bad game.”

The Cavs 12-2 loss to Birdville a month ago also helped them stay grounded, according to center fielder Cohl Walla.

“I think playing Birdville was really good for us,” Walla said. “Playing a good team like that, and losing so badly – it was a good lesson that we’re beatable.”

The key now is staying in game form with a week of little game action.

“It’s kind of a no school week with the stuff going on, so it’s really important that we keep our routines in practice. We have to make sure we’re game ready. I don’t know what happened, but I think they just got caught sleeping. You’ve got to be ready,” Holt said. “Routine is so important. In football, throughout the playoffs, the coaches made it seem like any other game. Our routines were exactly the same every week. There was never a feeling like anything was different.”

And despite a strong season to this point, they know it will take more if they want to make it to state.

“I think the pitching will be important for us, we’ve been hitting pretty well all year, so I think that we’ll really rely on our pitching to get us through the tougher games,” Walla said.

Those valuable arms will get one week of rest before the march to a title begins.