Topeka ? Last week’s heart-breaking 36-35 loss to Olathe Northwest means nothing. Neither does Free State High’s 2-4 football record.

What matters is Class 6A district competition.

“The real season starts now,” junior tailback Brian Murphy said.

The Firebirds will open district play tonight against Topeka High. Kickoff will be at 7 p.m. at Hummer Sports Park.

“Everybody is zero and zero,” Firebirds coach Bob Lisher said. “Now, it’s time to step up and see if all that work we’ve been putting in to improve is going to happen.”

The Trojans (2-4) stunned the Firebirds, 36-28, in a triple-overtime thriller last season at Haskell Stadium. Topeka didn’t throw a single pass in that game but gained 253 yards on the ground.

“Topeka High has a lot of speed, and a lot of it’s back from last year,” Lisher said, “and we had a hard time stopping them last year.”

That could mean trouble for a defense that gave up 211 rushing yards last week to O-Northwest.

“We’ve worked a lot of schemes to try to stop their speed and, hopefully, our kids will respond to those schemes and get it done,” Lisher said.

Lisher also has emphasized on special teams. In addition to the game-deciding missed PAT, the kickoff-coverage team allowed a touchdown.

“That’s something I don’t know any amount of time can change.” the Free State coach said. “We just have to have kids concentrate, focus and get that done. We’ll continue to work on it, but we just have to have people that step up and get those things fixed.”

Offense hasn’t been a problem. Quarterback Ryan Murphy is the Sunflower League’s total offense leader, and twin brother Brian has rushed for 609 yards in the six games. Free State produced 321 yards of offense last week against the Ravens.

“I thought last week, for the most part, we had a pretty good night,” Lisher said. “This week, I don’t see us changing too much. We just want to keep improving on what we’re doing, and hopefully continue to move the football.”

Lisher preached defense all week, and said it could be the decision-maker of whether they start district 1-0.

“We have to play much better defense. We have to do assignment defense, and do it well,” Lisher said, “be disciplined in our techniques and get to the football and make tackles. We haven’t been able to do that very well the last three or four weeks.”

Next week, the Firebirds will play host to Lawrence High at 7 p.m. at Memorial Stadium.