Groton — It's a game, Friday night's Class L state tournament final, with a little bit of everything. History. Nostalgia. Unfinished business. Even the Connecticut Gatorade Player of the Year.

One thing that hasn't seemed to affect the Fitch High School softball team this year, ranked first in the New Haven Register state poll and unbeaten at 26-0, is pressure. The Falcons unseated previous No. 1 Southington with a 2-0 victory on April 25, went to extra innings twice during the regular season against Norwich Free Academy and were down to their last out against NFA during the Eastern Connecticut Conference tournament final.

"USA Today came out with their Super 25 today and we're ranked No. 17. The 17th-ranked high school softball team in the country," said Fitch senior pitcher Caroline Taber, the Gatorade winner for the second straight season and a regional All-American. "That's crazy. That's insane. It's almost unbelievable.

"I just remember Masuk, my freshman year, kicked us in the face (in the state tournament quarterfinals, 7-0). It was my worst butt-kicking ever in softball. So you can't think about the pressure. We are just ridiculous in the back of the bus playing Miley Cyrus."

Fitch, ranked No. 1 in Class L, will play No. 2 Masuk for the championship beginning at 7 p.m. Friday at West Haven High School. It is Fitch's third straight appearance in the final, winning the 2014 title 3-1 over Sacred Heart and falling last year to East Haven (4-2) after entering that game unbeaten, as well.

It is the final game for Taber and fellow seniors Mackenzie Aldridge in left field and Nalissa Amar in right field.

"I moved here in seventh grade and I met all these people," said Aldridge, who began the game-winning rally in the ECC tournament final with a two-out triple. "I went from never playing softball before to meeting the Tabers and playing on three softball teams at a time, three or four. ... We played all-stars together for years. We know each others' mannerisms. We pick each other up."

"There's no pressure," Amar said. "Only in that we wanted to get to the position of last year. I made the last out last year and I hold that on me. We deserve to be in that position again. But during the year, even if we lost to Southington, we thought, 'No matter what, we're going to get better.'"

Taber, who will pitch for Princeton next year, threw a matter-of-fact one-hitter in Tuesday night's 3-0 semifinal victory over Torrington and Taylor Wolfgang hit a two-run homer in the first inning.

Masuk (20-5) advanced with a 7-6 victory over Foran, winning on an error in the bottom of the seventh. The Panthers got home runs from Ali Lichvar and Maggie Lebinski. Freshman pitcher Sam Schiebe struck out five and walked eight.

Fitch and Masuk most certainly have a state tournament history.

Fitch upset the top-ranked Panthers, who had won 77 straight games, in the Class LL final in 2009 at DeLuca Field in Stratford when Fitch coach Arielle Cooper and assistant Aubrey Latham (the winning pitcher in that game) were seniors. The duo began reminiscing during the trip to Stratford earlier in the week for the semis and Latham was still recounting Cooper's acrobatic diving stop at third base against Masuk at Thursday's practice.

Masuk last won the title in 2013, going through the Falcons when Taber was still the second baseman.

Cooper, 25, a former All-American at Eastern Connecticut State University, was Fitch's interim coach during its title run in 2014 and an assistant on last year's staff. She became the full-time head coach this season.

"They're all very different," Taber said Thursday. "The first one, I was 15. Then last year, it was like, 'Oh, we should easily be able to do this.' No, you guys need to get off your high horse. We were too anxious. We didn't have good pitch selections."

"They have to know that people are going to score runs against us. They can't think they're untouchable," Cooper said. "They have to know they're good enough (to come back)."

Cooper said she learned mental toughness from her coach at Eastern, Diana Pepin. She cited Aldridge's clutch triple in the ECC final as an example of believing in yourself. Aldridge did not bat most of the season, yielding to a designated player.

"She hasn't taken it personally, clearly. Some people could say, 'Oh, well, she sat me and now she wants me to hit?'" Cooper said. "Everyone has their moment, everyone has their time. ... I try to tell them it's what you're doing when no one's watching that matters."

v.fulkerson@theday.com