Lawrence High’s football team already has the home-field advantage locked up for next week’s first round of the Class 6A state playoffs.

The Lions not only are coming off a big win over Free State in last week’s city showdown, but tonight they play their last regular-season game against winless Topeka High.

So what’s the motivation?

Plenty, if you ask attention-to-detail-orientated LHS coach Dirk Wedd.

“We don’t look by anyone,” Wedd said. “These guys (Lions) have been pretty consistent at taking one game at a time.

“They understand how important it is to improve every week if you want to get better.”

Ultimately that’s the goal of the Lions (6-2 overall, 2-0 Class 6A District 4), who Wedd said are not riding an extreme high after their 21-6 victory over the Firebirds.

“I think anytime you win a big game, I think it helps,” Wedd said. “It was never our goal to be city champions, though.

“We want to win a state championship,” he said. “If anybody was sitting here and patting themselves on the back for last week’s win, then we’re not going to go very far.”

While LHS has plenty of reason to applaud its play over the last five weeks because of four lopsided victories and a big win over defending state champ Olathe North, Wedd said it’s back to the basics this week.

“There’s a lot of little things we can continue to do to improve,” he said. “We need to hang on to the football. We were fortunate that we played so well last week on defense that turnovers didn’t bother us.”

While the Lions did lose three fumbles against Free State, a Lawrence High offensive rushing attack that gained 243 yards on the ground and three scores more than made up for those mistakes.

The Trojans can expect more of the same tonight.

“At some point we know we’re going to have to throw it,” said Wedd, whose team leads the Sunflower League in rushing yards with 2,297 and 26 touchdowns. “We work diligently on our passing game every day in practice.

“But, yeah, I’m sure we’re going to like to run the football,” said Wedd, whose team averages 287 yards a game on the ground. “We go in knowing that people are trying to take something away from us, but we got to do what we do best.”