Free State High’s Lucca Wang wasn’t going to let a late goal by Shawnee Heights in the FSHS girls soccer season opener Tuesday keep her team from a victory.

Wang’s second goal of the game with under a minute remaining propelled the Firebirds to a 2-1 victory at FSHS.

“I think, for the team, it’s really big because it’s a win starting out our season, and that just makes us look forward to our future games,” said Wang, who put away a Jenni Brooks pass with 51 seconds remaining to prevent overtime.

Wang’s unassisted goal late in the first half had the Firebirds leading until an inadvertent kick by Free State’s Taylor Case gave the Thunderbirds a goal.

“We’re tired, it’s the end of the game, (and) we got disorganized, which was a very big problem that happened a lot this game,” Free State goalie Meghan Hrenchir said “So we just got disorganized, and Taylor tried to hit it out because I was going right, and she just tipped it and it spins back into the goal. I was really close to getting to it, but close doesn’t count.”

FSHS spent most of the game on the defense, but Hrenchir was able to thwart all of Shawnee Heights’ shots on goal.

“Meghan, at times, is a very good goalkeeper, and today she played really well,” FSHS coach Jason Pendleton said. “She made a couple of big saves with Clare Robinson in the back doing a really good job of getting organized at times and sorting things out.”

The Firebirds coach also was impressed with the play of the forwards, an assessment with which Hrenchir quickly agreed.

“Yeah, my forwards are amazing,” Hrenchir said. “And that’s pretty much all I have to say – yes.”

Pendleton said the Firebirds’ lack of conditioning allowed the Thunderbirds to control the pace.

“Our fitness is pretty bad, our organization is pretty bad, so obviously from my perspective I’ve got to do a better job preparing us and getting us in the right physical fitness that we need to have some success,” Pendleton said. “We’re going to have to – organizationally – do some things a little bit different.

“But having said all that, it’s positive that we did a lot of things poorly, and still we were able to beat a team that’s coming off two consecutive years where they finished second at the state in (Class) 5A.”

The Firebirds will travel Thursday to Shawnee Mission West.