PRAIRIE VILLAGE ? Free State High seniors Julia Guard and Leigh Luina did not get off to the start they wanted Thursday at the Sunflower League girls tennis tournament.

The Firebirds’ top doubles team lost its opening match to Olathe East.

Guard and Luina bounced back, winning their final two matches and helping the Firebirds finish fifth in the 12-team tournament at Shawnee Mission East.

“We are pretty pleased,” Guard said. “We lost to Olathe East, but I think if we get another shot in the regionals that we can play a lot better. We were a little nervous.”

Free State was focused on getting good seeding for next week’s regional tournament. Although the Firebirds will not know their official seeding for a few days, they think their play was beneficial.

“It is good to get our losses out of the way and get our jitters out and just come in and play strong at regionals,” Guard said. “We are trying to see the positives in everything, and hopefully it pans out for the better. We are going to try to qualify as many girls as we can.”

Free State got its highest finish from its second doubles team of Maggie Hull and Rosie Hull, who finished fourth. On the singles side, Molly Fyler finished ninth and Holly Maygers finished fifth.

“They were the leaders of the team today,” Guard said of Hull and Hull. “They did pretty well. They had a lot of really long matches and I think they are happy with the outcome.”

Lawrence High finished ninth on Thursday, led by the singles play of Lauren Kelly, who finished eighth, and Kelly Morgan, who finished sixth.

“I am not satisfied with how we finished today,” LHS coach Steve Hudson said. “I thought we played hard, but we could have played better. I am not upset at all with the girls’ effort that they gave the whole day.”

The Lions struggled in close games that had deuce points, Hudson said.

“If you don’t win that game, it can be a distraction,” he said.

Both doubles teams of Lucy Liu and Lily Boyce, and Joanna Wakeman and Becca Dirks finished ninth.

Hudson will use the performance to help his team gain experience for the critical regional matches next week.

“We are going to work on a few things so that, hopefully, by regionals we will not have as many errors,” Hudson said.

LHS played three matches this week and will focus the remainder of the week on resting, Hudson said.