Before Free State High football coach Bob Lisher broke the team’s postgame huddle Friday night, he emphasized three words more than any others he said following a 14-12 loss to rival Lawrence: “Don’t be down.”

Lisher, of course, knew the Firebirds felt upset. They had a chance to take the lead in the final minute-plus of a rivalry-game thriller but came up short on their home field. The coach made sure his players, still winless three weeks into the season, understood FSHS actually took a step in the right direction.

While Lisher admittedly hates losing, he said Free State played much better football against the Lions (3-0) than it had in losses to Shawnee Mission West and Olathe North.

“Discipline-wise, defense-wise, offense-wise — everything was better,” Lisher said. “We’ve gotta build on that.”

Senior quarterback Bryce Torneden, who rushed for 135 yards and passed for 106, said the Firebirds (0-3) needed that kind of pick-me-up after seeing LHS students celebrate 20 yards away from them in the aftermath of the loss.

“It’s definitely not a good feeling. We want to be that team, bringing it home for our school,” Torneden said. “It just didn’t happen. It was a good game.”

Lawrence had a chance to put the game away with just more than two minutes to go, but a fumbled snap allowed FSHS senior linebacker Drew Tochtrop to pounce on a loose ball.

The Firebirds, who missed their only PAT kick attempt of the season in the first quarter, would have to go 91 yards in 2:10 to win. And they nearly did.

Torneden runs, pass completions to Tochtrop, senior Jack Flynn, junior Zack Sanders and senior Logan McKinney, as well as an LHS penalty, got Free State within striking distance.

FSHS even seemed destined to take the lead with just more than a minute to go when Torneden spotted Sanders open deep down the left sideline, with room to beat LHS to the end zone. But Sanders couldn’t hold onto the potential go-ahead pass.

Devastated after the narrow loss, Sanders received encouragement from a number of his teammates and coaches.

Said Torneden: “I just told him to keep his head up. He wouldn’t be in that position if he wasn’t a great player. I’m proud of him. We wouldn’t have been in that position without him. There’s no reason to beat himself up.”

Senior FSHS running back Sam Skwarlo, whose late fumble at O-North cost the Firebirds a week earlier, said he could relate to how Sanders felt, but he wanted the receiver to keep his head up. What’s more, that’s the approach the whole team needed to take.

“As tough as it is to lose like that,” Skwarlo said after rushing for 54 yards and a TD, “we definitely got better. Our defense definitely stepped up a lot compared to the last two weeks. That’s what we were looking for.”

The Firebirds, 0-3 for the first time since 2004, play at Leavenworth next week. Lisher hopes they can enter that game with some positive momentum, despite a difficult loss.

“We’ve had a tough schedule, no doubt about it,” the coach said. “Our first three games were killers, and we knew they would be. But we’re growing as a football team. We made a great deal of improvement from Week One to now.”