Entering Friday’s city showdown with Free State, Lawrence High senior Tyler Hunt had carried the ball 98 times for 641 yards, posing week after week as the Lions’ workhorse on offense.

Hunt’s line Friday night at Haskell Stadium: two carries, nine yards.

“Those guys are pretty good up front,” said LHS coach Dirk Wedd of Free State. “And we didn’t feel like we could get in a punching contest with them.”

So the Lions left their heavy gloves at home.

Hunt played plenty in the Lions’ 27-0 loss to the Firebirds, appearing in various offensive sets, starting at middle linebacker and punting the ball five times. But his first carry didn’t come until 3:45 remained in the fourth quarter. A simple dive play up the middle went for eight yards. By that time, the game was essentially over.

Instead of riding Hunt the way they had so many times this season, the Lions elected to spread things out, hoping to use quarterback Clint Pinnick, a five-receiver set and a pinpoint passing attack to upset the Firebirds.

For most of the first two quarters, the approach worked. The LHS defense stuffed Free State four of the six times the Firebirds went for it on fourth down, including three in a row to open the game.

“We felt like, if we could keep the score within one or two touchdowns, we’d have a shot,” Wedd said.

Defensively, that might have been the case. Offensively, however, the Lions struggled mightily.

With their top two receivers sidelined with injuries and Hunt out of the equation in the backfield, the Lions tallied just 91 yards of total offense, including 54 yards on 33 carries.

Junior tailback Clifton Sims led LHS with 14 carries for 38 yards.

“The things that we’d been doing before, they had defended,” Sims said. “If we throw something brand new out there that they haven’t defended, some teams our age, they see something new they automatically just go into shock. That was our motive to try to get it done.”

After the game, Wedd backed his decision to go away from Hunt, indicating that the idea was to keep him fresh on defense.

“We were just wearing (Hunt) out,” Wedd said. “He wasn’t getting a lot of tackles in the last couple of games. It was a calculated risk. When you’re not shooting with all your bullets, you have to find the best way to try to do it. Sometimes you’re right, sometimes you’re wrong.”

The loss dropped the Lions to 3-5 on the season and 1-1 in district play. LHS will travel to Topeka High next week, needing a victory to keep its season alive.