TWIN FALLS — Miah Lusk’s pitches can deceive like Harry Houdini. It might look like Pocatello’s star pitcher is throwing mostly fastballs, like it did in the Thunder’s 4A state opener Friday afternoon against Emmett.

“But they’re doing different things,” Poky coach Josh Naylor said. “So yeah, it can seem like she’s just throwing fastballs sometimes, but there’s some movement in there.”

Turns out, Lusk does throw lots of fastballs. She just has a rise-ball. A curveball. A changeup. They all look relatively similar, which is where her genius comes in. She made sure Emmett never solved the puzzle in Poky’s 7-1 win, helping the Thunder move on to the next round the same afternoon. There, Poky earned a 6-4 win, setting up a date with Skyview at 10 a.m. Saturday.

“She was on-point with everything,” Naylor said. “Location, was using all her pitches, had a great change-up to throw them off balance. Miah was Miah. I mean, she just did what she normally does. When she’s on like that, we’re hard to beat because it’s not as if we’re not going to score some runs. That’s what sustains us. So I think we’re good in all aspects of the game with Miah obviously being a fantastic pitcher.”

Here’s the breakdown on how tomorrow’s games will work: If Pocatello beats Skyview, the Thunder will move on to the 4A state championship game, which is set for 3 p.m. at the College of Southern Idaho. If the Thunder win that game, they become state champs, but if they lose, they play again at 5 p.m.

If the Thunder lose to Skyview in tomorrow’s first game, they’ll play at 1 p.m. at CSI, against the winner of Hillcrest/Emmett. Win that and they advance to the state title game. Lose and their season ends.

Make sense yet?

Anyway, to beat Emmett, Lusk registered this line: Complete seven innings, one run on two hits, one walk and a whopping 15 strikeouts. Her fastball zipped by batters like lightning. Her changeup fooled them like David Blaine. When she finished an inning with a strikeout, she took off her mask and shouted let’s go! — but at this point, you shouldn’t be surprised to read any of this.

That’s because Lusk has made this a habit. Entering Friday, she sported a 0.92 ERA, which ranked third in the state. She had carded 19 wins, which ranked first, along with 216 strikeouts, which ranked second. We could go on and on with superlatives, about how she retired the first 14 batters she faced in Friday’s game, about how she has yielded just two earned runs in her last five starts. But the best way to describe her is with a word: Untouchable. She was a little less sharp in Game 2, allowing four runs (two earned) against Hillcrest, but she also struck out another dozen in that effort.

She looked every bit the part on Friday, especially because her offense supplied her with plenty of support. In the first frame, junior Kirstine Kent roped a two-run double into the right-field gap, handing the Thunder a 2-0 lead. “That broke the ice, and we really needed that,” Naylor said. “I felt like we were loose, but like to get those couple of runs right on the board right in the beginning, it kinda makes us settle in a little bit and just go to work.”

Poky just kept going to work. In the third, Anna Campbell scored when an Emmett catcher threw down to second. Then, in the fifth, sophomore Taylee Rogers launched a solo homer to left, turning around on a high pitch and sending it over the fence. “She’s phenomenal,” Naylor said. “She’s dialed in right now, and she has been the whole season, especially lately. When she’s up, I feel like she’s gonna do damage, by her body language, her pitch selection, everything. So she’s a great leadoff hitter to have.