It appears the Free State High football team will call Kansas University’s Memorial Stadium home for another year.

Though nothing has been finalized, Free State athletic director Steve Grant said KU “orally agreed to let us play there next year.”

Grant said he hoped a written agreement could be worked out soon.

Tuesday, most KU athletic department officials were in Dallas for the Big 12 Conference men’s and women’s basketball tournaments and were unavailable for comment.

The Firebirds have just four home games on next year’s schedule, and two of them would be played on Thursday because of overlap with KU’s football schedule.

In line with standard Division One practices, KU and its opponents need the stadium’s locker rooms on Friday night before a game Saturday. Therefore, Free State has agreed to move up home games that conflict with KU home games to Thursday.

“It’s fine with us,” Grant said. “If you look at the schedule, we play at home the same weeks that Lawrence High does. So even if we were playing at Haskell, we’d still have some Thursday games.”

In addition, two of Free State’s road games also will be played on Thursday, making for four Thursday games and five Friday games on the regular-season schedule.

“It makes it more difficult,” FSHS football coach Bob Lisher said. “Kids like routine, and they like to know what to expect. That changes the routine.

“But we’ve had Thursday night games before. It’s not desirable, but we’ll play whenever we’re supposed to play, and we’ll be ready.”

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LHS schedule nearly final: Lawrence High will play a mostly Friday night football slate this fall, with home games at Haskell Stadium.

The only game that could be played on Thursday is a week-four matchup at Shawnee Mission East either Sept. 23 or Sept. 24. That will be finalized in the near future.

The city showdown football game between LHS and Free State is slated for Oct. 22 at Haskell Stadium. LHS will be the home team.

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Wang honored: Former Free State tennis standout Emily Wang already has made a big impact in college.

A freshman at Illinois, Wang was named Big Ten Tennis Athlete of the Week on Friday, stemming from her undefeated week in duals against Western Michigan and No. 4 Washington.

Wang earned wins at No. 6 singles (the only Illini player to win at singles) and No. 3 doubles against Washington, then grabbed victories at No. 5 singles and No. 2 doubles against Western Michigan.

Wang was a two-time singles state champion at Free State, earning titles in 2001 and 2002.

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High scorer: The city’s top basketball scorer this winter was none other than sophomore Mark Randtke of Veritas Christian.

Randtke enjoyed a fabulous season, averaging 21.7 points and 10.3 rebounds per game for the 9-14 Eagles.

Other top scorers include Free State’s Brady Morningstar (15.7 ppg) and Jamie Stanclift (12.3 ppg), Lawrence High’s Cherrale Ricks (12.6 ppg) and Veritas’ Kirk Long (15.1 ppg).