Topeka ? With Free State High’s Jenna Brantley nursing an injured ankle, the Topeka High girls basketball team focused its containment Friday night on Lauren Kimball.

That was just fine with opportunistic Firebirds forward Kelsey Harrison.

Harrison, a senior, led Free State with 14 points in a 51-31 victory in “The Dungeon” at Topeka High.

“With Jenna out, I have to step up more to create more offense,” Harrison said. “I had a lot of open shots, and coach has been talking to me a lot lately about shooting when I’m open. I just took them, and they happened to go in.”

Free State (4-1) only led, 15-10, after the first quarter. Then the Firebirds blew the game open with a 20-2 run, which actually started at the end of the first quarter.

“I think that happened because of our defense,” Free State coach Bryan Duncan said. “We really defended well in our press and our half-court man, and that created a lot of easy buckets for us.”

Harrison drained four mid-range jumpers in the first half, then had two buckets and hit both her free throws in the second.

“Kelsey’s an outstanding shooter and scorer, but she just doesn’t always look to score as much as we’d like her to,” Duncan said. “Tonight, she was very assertive. Once she got comfortable, she was looking for her shot.”

FREE STATE SENIOR LAUREN KIMBALL cuts between Topeka defenders Danielle Sicard, left, and Myah Sprew during the second half of their game at The

Kimball scored nine of her 12 points in the first half. The senior point guard frequently drove past Topeka defenders and drew fouls in the lane. Kimball visited the charity stripe 10 times.

Kimball personally took Topeka guard Danielle Sicard out of the game.

In the first half, Topeka (2-2) defenders didn’t pressure Kimball much when she led the half-court offense. In the second half, Sicard frequently positioned herself near half court, pressuring Kimball much more.

As a result, Kimball took Sicard off the dribble and was a big part of why Sicard picked up four second-half fouls. Since Sicard had one foul in the first half, she fouled out of the game.

“We just kept getting the ball inside,” Kimball said. “We really focused on hitting the open person.”

Much of the time, the Free State open person was Harrison.

“She’s one of the most important people, if not the most important person on this team,” Kimball said of Harrison. “She creates a lot of opportunities for the rest of the team and gets people open, too.”

Topeka High 74, Free State boys 63

With 5:27 remaining in the first quarter, Free State boys basketball coach Chuck Law pulled four of his starters out of the game.

“We were gassed. We were absolutely exhausted,” Law said after the 11-point defeat. “Their pace of play wore us out. I was looking at our guys two minutes in, and they were all holding their shorts, so we obviously need to get into better shape.”

Topeka High (3-1), which Law noted as being ranked preseason No. 6 in the state, played nine players throughout the game. The Topeka speed plagued the Firebirds throughout the night.

“We struggled with transition defense and rebounding,” sophomore guard Marcus Spates said. “That’s the fastest team we’ve faced this season.”

As a result, Law gave Spates, one of Free State’s quickest guards, more minutes. He responded with 11 points off the bench.

“He has the ability to break people down off the dribble,” Law said of Spates. “He has the quickness to guard the kind of quickness Topeka High had on the court.”

Junior guard Kris Wilson led Free State (3-2) with 13 points. Senior guard Kyle Schreiner and junior forward Weston Wiebe added 11 apiece.