Bryce Toneden breaks in the middle for yards. as Free State played Shawnee Mission East Friday in Overland Park. FSHS won, 32-20.

Overland Park ? Defending Class 6A state champion Shawnee Mission East hadn’t lost a football game since the 2013 state championship, against Derby. The Lancers’ 17 game-winning streak didn’t escape the minds of visiting Free State High on Friday night at Shawnee Mission North District Stadium. If anything, the unheralded Firebirds embraced the opportunity to become the team that put an end to it.

Once FSHS took the lead on the last play of the second quarter, the underdogs rediscovered the confidence they had entering the season, and the same group that went winless until its fourth game shocked the Sunflower League with a 32-20 road victory against the Lancers.

“The first three weeks didn’t go our way because of simple mistakes at the end of the game,” senior Free State running back Sam Skwarlo said after rushing for 172 yards and three touchdowns. “This is the first game that we played all four quarters like we should.”

The last two quarters in particular proved critical for the Firebirds (2-3), who shut out SME after the champs took a 20-19 lead with 6:42 remaining in the first half. Free State’s defense forced a punt and stymied three fourth-down conversion attempts in between long stretches of the FSHS offense playing keep-away, courtesy of a running attack that finished the game with 334 yards.

When junior Drew Wise and senior Drew Tochtrop pressured SME quarterback Luke Kaiser into a fourth straight incompletion with less than three minutes to play, the upset was complete.

Said junior linebacker Jay Dineen: “We came in with the mentality that we were gonna win, and a lot of teams don’t do that against these guys because of how good they are. Knowing that we came in with a good plan, our line stepped up, our running back stepped up, our quarterback stepped up. Everybody stepped up tonight, knowing it was the No. 1 team in the state.”

Skwarlo’s one-yard rushing touchdown with 2:25 left in the third quarter gave Free State a 29-20 advantage, and capped a run-only, 11-play drive in which he, senior quarterback Bryce Torneden and junior running back Zion Bowlin kept SME (4-1) guessing on option runs. Skwarlo looked stuffed just shy of the goal line on the final play, but he snuck the tip of the ball just across.

After Wise and Dineen came up with a rare tackle for loss against SME senior running back Wyatt Edmisten (26 carries, 187 yards and a TD) that keyed a defensive stand, Skwarlo’s legs seemed to grow stronger in the fourth quarter, and a 56-yard carry from the senior flipped the field, setting up a 33-yard field goal by freshman kicker Kameron Lake, from the left hash.

“That’s why I love the man,” Dineen said of the un-fatigue-able Skwarlo. “Every time he gets the ball, we know he’s gonna run as hard as he can.”

FSHS coach Bob Lisher didn’t call a single passing play in the second half, and the old-school approach meant SME only ran 27 plays in the final 24 minutes.

“We really just ate up the clock,” Skwarlo said of Free State playing a different style. “Five-yard gains, five-yard gains, over and over again and that just wore their defense down.”

The first half featured six lead changes, the final one coming as time expired and Lake — who became the first FSHS kicker in program history to make two field goals in one regular-season game — sent a 28-yard kick through the uprights.

The Firebirds’ offense had a nearly perfect drive entering the break. After a flurry of scores from both sides in the first few minutes of the second quarter, including a 50-yard sprint to the end zone by Torneden, Free State took over with 6:34 to play in the half. The visitors kept the ball out of the Lancers’ hands by moving the ball 52 yards on 17 plays. The drive included three fourth-down conversions, the last coming with 14.9 seconds left, on a pass interference flag against SME when Torneden tried to hit Zack Sanders over the middle.

Torneden already had picked up nine yards though the air on a fourth-and-four at East’s 36-yard line, despite heavy pressure in the backfield form the Lancers. Torneden ran backward more than 10 yards to avoid a sack and turnover on downs, then dumped a pass off to Skwarlo to extend the improbable possession.

Lake, who missed an extra point earlier in the quarter, gave Free State momentum headed into halftime with the crucial field goal.

“It was very important,” FSHS coach Bob Lisher said of that drive. “Our goal was to pound the football at them a little bit, because we thought we could move the ball downhill on them, and we did.”

After the victory, Lisher said his team finally stopped shooting itself in the foot, and he thinks the Firebirds are improving every week. While the FSHS defensive line has had issues at times, the coach liked what he saw from junior Sam Hambleton (who had a first-quarter fumble recovery), senior Darian Lewis, senior Jalen Galloway and company.

“Sometimes we got pushed out, but our guys were playing hard,” Lisher said. “That’s a pretty good front, but we played well enough to keep everybody in check. We bent a little bit, but we didn’t break in the second half, and that was the whole key.”

FSHS SME

First downs 20 15

Rushes-yards 58-334 43-272

Passing yards 54 115

Total offense 388 387

Return yards 50 33

Fumbles-lost 0-0 1-1

Penalties-yards 4-20 7-75

Score by quarters

Free State 7 15 7 3 — 32

SM East 7 13 0 0 — 20

Individual statistics

Rushing

Free State: Sam Skwarlo 28-172 3 TDs, Bryce Torneden 18-134 TD, Zion Bowlin 9-28, Zack Sanders 2-2, Team 1-minus-2.

SME: Wyatt Edmisten 26-187 TD, Luke Kaiser 6-33, Jack Tyler 6-36, Mike Bamford 3-11, Carl Young 2-5.

Passing

Free State: Torneden 4-8-54.

SME: Kaiser 3-10-115 2 TDs.

Receiving

Free State: Logan McKinney 3-45, Skwarlo 1-9.

SME: Sky Tate 3-115 2 TDs.

HOW THEY SCORED

First quarter

7:39 — Sky Tate 73 pass from Luke Kaiser. Keith Barry kick. (SME 7, FSHS 0.)

4:36 — Sam Skwarlo 8 run. Kameron Lake kick. (SME 7, FSHS 7.)

Second quarter

11:07 — Skwarlo 15 run. Lake kick failed. (FSHS 13, SME 7.)

8:27 — Tate 32 pass from Kaiser. Barry kick. (SME 14, FSHS 13.)

7:27 — Bryce Torneden 50 run. Torneden run failed. (FSHS 19, SME 14.)

6:42 — Wyatt Edmisten 60 run. Edmisten run failed. (SME 20, FSHS 19.)

0:00 — Lake 28 field goal. (FSHS 22, SME 20.)

Third quarter

2:25 — Skwarlo 1 run. Lake kick. (FSHS 29, SME 20.)

Fourth quarter

7:36 — Lake 33 field goal. (FSHS 32, SME 20.)