The bottom line is simple. Win, head to the state championship on Saturday. Lose, season over.

But there is so much more at stake.

Bend High’s Delaney Crook knows this. When her Lava Bears take to the pitch at 3 o’clock this afternoon, it will be more than just a Class 5A girls soccer state semifinal contest.

There will be a different feel to it, because lining up opposite Bend will be crosstown rival Summit. And because a number of the Storm’s players are past or present club soccer teammates of many of the Lava Bears.

Take Crook and standout Summit forward Hadlie Plummer, for example, who began playing side by side in a local park district league when they were 8 years old, by Crook’s estimation, and continued playing together into high school with the Oregon Rush Soccer Club (now Bend FC Timbers).

According to Bend High coach Mackenzie Groshong, a similar story could be told for the majority of her team as well as Summit’s.

“Since we’ve already played them twice this year, there’s always those thoughts going on,” says Crook, Bend’s senior midfielder, who shared Intermountain Conference player of the year honors with Plummer this season. “It’s a big rivalry, and I think it probably will get a little more physical, a little more intense, than any other semifinal you’ll see because it is Bend-Summit.”

Since 2005, Bend and Summit have dominated the IMC. Between them in that span they have won all nine league titles and have seven runner-up finishes. Five of the past eight IMC champions have gone on to win the Class 5A state title — the Lava Bears three times, the Storm twice.

Between the state accolades, the intracity IMC competition and the familiarity between players and coaches, today’s semifinal matchup is personal, Groshong says, with each team having considerable knowledge of the other’s strengths and weaknesses. All of this adds even more fuel to an already heated rivalry.

“A lot of them are friends off the field, and then on the field the emotions run high,” says Summit coach Jamie Brock, whose Storm defeated the Lava Bears in the state quarterfinals in 2010, the last time the two teams met in the playoffs. “There’s this rivalry piece where our girls are like, ‘Oh, it’s Bend High. We want to beat Bend High.’ … This is one more step on the way to a finals.”

At Summit High this afternoon, the Storm will look to continue their quest for a second straight state championship to join Bend High (2008-09) as the only Central Oregon girls soccer programs to capture back-to-back titles.

“It doesn’t matter who it is, you’ve got to go through anybody to get to the finals,” Brock says. “Of course, it (the rivalry) carries more weight with the girls. There’s no way around that. They’ve been playing (Bend’s) girls since they were little. … They know that it will be tough. It’s always a harder game than it might have been if the other team wasn’t local.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be much different than the way it was played (Saturday),” Groshong says, referring to the Bears’ 2-1 home quarterfinal win over Willamette of Eugene. “It’s continuing on to do what we learned and do together what we’ve learned. Obviously, we know how each other plays. So it’s going to make it that much more of a battle. We know each other’s strengths. We know each other’s weaknesses.”

As much as the opposing coaches contend that today’s contest is simply a semifinal matchup, there is no way around it — this is Bend versus Summit.

Crook notes that as a team gets deeper into the playoffs, games become more difficult — no matter the opponent.

“The teams get better and there’s more at stake as you go on,” Crook says. “It’s expected that it’s going to be a little more physical and more intense. But I think it’s always intense with Bend-Summit.”

Plummer expects the play to be aggressive and emotional. It will differ from the two previous Summit-Bend meetings — when the Storm won 3-0 at home before playing the Bears to a 2-2 draw at 15th Street Field a month later. Simply put, this semifinal contest will be a battle.

And despite the strong friendship that many of these rivals share, as soon as the whistle blows to start this afternoon’s contest, that relationship goes out the window.

“Obviously, the Bend High-Summit rivalry is pretty strong — it always has been,” Plummer says. “But especially for a game like this, you can’t really let that get in the way of how you play or anything.”

Boys soccer state semifinals, at a glance

Here is a quick look at the games involving area teams today, with records in parentheses:

Wilsonville (12-3-1) at Summit (14-1-2) in Class 5A semifinals, 5 p.m.: The Storm, seeded No. 2 in the 16-team bracket, have fallen short of the state championship each of the last two years, losing in the semifinals to eventual champion Woodburn in 2011 and to runner-up Mountain View last season. Now, Intermountain Conference champion Summit takes a 13-game winning streak into the semis — including back-to-back 1-0 victories over Liberty and Marist in the first two rounds of the state playoffs — to face off against the third-seeded Wildcats. Wilsonville, No. 1 out of the Northwest Oregon Conference, defeated Mountain View 5-1 in the first round and beat Silverton 3-0 in Saturday’s quarterfinals.

Philomath (9-3-5) at Sisters (15-1-1) in Class 4A semifinals, 2 p.m.: After logging wins decided by penalty kicks in the first two rounds of the state playoffs, the seventh-seeded Outlaws have gone deeper into postseason play than ever before in the program’s history. Scoring went up from one goal in the first round to three in the quarterfinals, and Sisters will look to return to its for in the regular season, when the Outlaws averaged nearly seven goals per game. Sisters hosts the No. 11 Warriors, who finished third in the Oregon West Conference. Philomath dispatched sixth-seeded Phoenix 2-1 in overtime before upsetting No. 3 Stayton 1-0 in Saturday’s quarterfinals. The Warriors will be on the road for the third time in as many games in the state playoffs.

Admission to all semifinal matches is $7 for adults and $5 for students (ages 5 and older through high school).

Game of the week

Three times Sisters erased one-goal deficits on Saturday, and the Outlaws defeated McLoughlin 5-4 in penalty kicks to advance to the Class 4A boys soccer semifinals with a 4-3 win in Milton-Freewater. The quarterfinal triumph came four days after Sisters eked out a 2-1 first-round victory over visiting North Marion thanks to a 5-4 decision in penalty kicks.

Player of the week

With 17 kills and 15 digs (both match highs), senior outside hitter Hannah Troutman guided Crook County to a 25-15, 25-17, 25-12 win in the Class 4A volleyball state championship final Saturday night at Lane Community College in Eugene. Her efforts helped the Cowgirls secure their eighth straight state championship.

Stat of the week

One. On Saturday, for the first time in the history of the Oregon High School Water Polo boys state championship, a team from Central Oregon not only reached the title game — actually, both Mountain View and Summit accomplished the feat — but one took home the first-place trophy. With Quinn Corrigan logging four goals in the second half, the Cougars broke a 5-5 halftime tie en route to their first-ever state title, defeating the crosstown rival Storm 15-6 in the 5A state championship final in Corvallis.