Emporia ? One of Kelsey Harrison’s top assignments on offense was to clear the lane so teammates Lauren Kimball and Jenna Brantley could drive toward the basket.

With 3:15 remaining in the fourth quarter Saturday, the Free State High girls basketball team was fortunate the paint wasn’t open.

Harrison found herself wide-open on the right wing behind the three-point line. The senior forward typically doesn’t shoot threes, but drained a long-distance shot that ended up being her last bucket in a Firebirds uniform. Free State didn’t trail the rest of the game and defeated Shawnee Mission West, 44-38, in the third-place game of the Class 6A state tournament in White Auditorium.

“After it came off my hand, I was like, ‘Please go in,'” Harrison said.

Brantley extended Free State’s lead to six with 1:32 remaining with an acrobatic dribbling display. The senior guard started the possession with the ball near halfcourt. She tried simply to dribble away from defenders to take time off the clock. After dribbling once between her legs, Brantley darted down the middle of the floor past the entire SM West defense, hung in the air and dropped in a layup without using the glass.

“I was actually looking to pass, but no one was really open. Everybody was spread out, so the lane was wide-open,” said Brantley, who scored a game-high 14 points. “I just beat the girl off the dribble.”

Brantley and Kimball sealed the victory with four straight free throws. Free State (18-7) was an efficient 15-of-19 (78.9 percent) from the free-throw line.

“It’s weird, because late in that game when we went to the free-throw line, I actually had a smile on my face,” Free State coach Bryan Duncan said. “That’s very abnormal for a coach, but you just knew they were going to drop.”

The Vikings were never truly out of the game because of their ability to score in bunches, particularly from the three-point line. SM West (17-8) put up 21 three-point attempts and made seven. Lauren Beeman hit two three-pointers in about a 30-second span in the fourth quarter to cut the lead to one – right before Harrison’s momentum-stopping shot.

After the game, the atmosphere appeared bittersweet near the Free State locker room. Despite the victory, Saturday represented the final time arguably the most talented senior class in Free State history – Brantley, Harrison, Kimball, Jessica Scott and Allie Hock – took the court. Before this season, no Free State team ever had won a state playoff game.

“Playing the last game with the five seniors, ending on a win and getting third at state, I couldn’t ask for more to end our season,” Harrison said. “We’ve been playing together since third or fourth grade.”

As for Brantley, who averaged more than 16 points per game at the state tournament, she’s just glad she got on the board Saturday.

“I actually had zero points the first time we played them,” Brantley said of the regular-season meeting against SM West. “It felt good to score and play well with the seniors for our last game ever.”