The state tournament is a home-away-from-home for Red Mountain pitching ace Bre Macha.

Macha settled in quickly after a tough first inning and shut down Chaparral the rest of the way in a 5-1 Mountain Lions victory over the Firebirds at Rose Mofford Softball Complex.

Mache, a junior who has pitched Red Mountain to two titles games in her first two seasons, won for the second time this season in two days at state. Macha bested Centennial 12-3 on Tuesday and Wednesday night toned down a lethal Chaparral lineup that shelled Basha for 12 runs on Tuesday in a round-of-16 win.

"She lives for this," Red Mountain coach Rich Hamilton said of Macha's prowess at playoff time. "She wants this. She's a big-time pitcher, and she likes the pressure."

Red Mountain (30-5) is now off until Monday May 6 when it faces No. 10 Desert Ridge in a 6;30 p.m. winners' bracket game at Rose Mofford. Desert Ridge edged No. 2 Cienega, 2-1. Desert Ridge beat Red Mountain twice this season in power-ranking games. Chaparral (24-11) and the No.14 seed, falls to the losers' bracket and plays again on Saturday May 4 at 11:30 a.m. against Cienega.

Macha faced a tough foe on the other side in Chaparral lefty Dallas McBride. After Chaparral touched Macha for a run in the first on two hits and an RBI ground out by Ashtyn Coleman, Red Mountain got back the run and more.

With leadoff hitter Alyssa Fernandez on base with the first of her three hits, Macha ripped a two-run homer to left. The next batter, Jordan Beck, who also had three hits, followed with an opposite field homer to right to make it 3-1.

That was plenty this night for Macha. She finished with eight strikeouts, walked two and limited an order littered with .400 hitters to five hits.

Macha was anxious to help her team regain the lead after surrendering the first-inning run and got a good pitch to hit.

"It was middle-in," Macha said. "(McBride) is a good pitcher and she's been coming off an injury."

Red Mountain added two more runs in the fourth with Beck capping a three-RBI game with a single to center scoring Fernandez and T.J Beeson.Red Mountain totaled 11 hits and none where cheapies -- all struck hard.

"We worked a lot in the cage sixth hour today," Hamilton said. "We knew what we were going to get if we could lay off pitches and make the strike zone smaller. It's nice to see when you work on somethiing and what comes out of it validates it."

McBride had two hits to lead Chaparral, which had a chance to score more in the first and missed chances in the second and fourth. 

"We didn't come through when we had chances," Chaparral coach Stefanie Ewing said. "Macha kept us off-balance. Red Mountain's been here before and is a team that knows how to win. They came through when they had chances."