Jake Byrd was the word and Kyson Ginavan the exclamation point.

“We were talking about how we needed to run the ball,” Byrd, a junior tailback, said after he scored four touchdowns in Olathe South’s 46-29 Class 6A state playoff football victory over Free State.

Byrd, a 5-foot-9, 175-pound junior, was the Falcons’ primary weapon with 230 yards of offense (188 rushing, 42 receiving) in Friday night’s game at Haskell Stadium, but Ginavan was the unlikely X-factor.

With 6:44 remaining, Chucky Hunter’s 40-yard touchdown gallop with a Ginavan punt had narrowed O-South’s lead to 37-29. But a mere 13 seconds later, Ginavan had returned Free State’s kickoff 85 yards for a deflating take-that.

“I think that broke their spirit,” said Ginavan, a 6-foot, 175-pound senior, “but you’d have to ask them.”

Ginavan does almost everything for the Falcons. He starts at wide receiver and in the secondary. He also does all the O-South punting and place-kicking. He even returns punts, but he doesn’t normally return kickoffs.

Yet coach Mark Littrell had sent Ginavan in to replace Anthony Sanchez, the usual kickoff-return man.

“I just felt like putting him in there,” Littrell said of the shift to Ginavan. “We just wanted to get good field position and then run a little clock.”

Instead, Ginavan took advantage of his blockers up the middle, then outraced pursuing Free State defenders down the right sideline.

“That was huge,” Littrell said. “That was just an awesome thing.”

In the first meeting between O-South and Free State in the season opener, quarterback Mike Keese had riddled the Firebirds’ secondary for 282 yards.

Meanwhile, Byrd carried the ball just nine times for 44 yards.

“I knew after what we’d done in that first game, they’d be determined not to let us pass the ball,” Littrell said. “And we couldn’t get passes off, but Jake came through. He’s one tough guy.”

Keese did throw for two touchdowns, but the Falcons accumulated – thanks to Byrd – more rushing (191) than passing yardage (151).

“He was awesome,” Ginavan said of Byrd. “We knew we had to run the ball, and he was a big factor.”

So was Ginavan’s kickoff return.

“Kyson made an amazing play on that,” Byrd said. “That was just a huge play.”