Free State High junior Jay Dineen (11) makes an outlet pass to push the ball ahead of the Shawnee Mission East defense during the Firebirds' game Tuesday evening in Prairie Village.

Prairie Village ? Ask any player or coach representing Free State’s boys basketball team and they’ll tell you the Firebirds never should have let Tuesday night’s game at Shawnee Mission East get to overtime.

But, boy, are they glad they figured out a way to win once it did.

After FSHS missed 15 free throws in the fourth quarter, senior guard Hunter Gudde, who played his part in the Firebirds’ second-half free-throw funk, missing five straight at one point, connected on a three-pointer from the right corner to open overtime.

Gudde scored seven of his game-high 30 points in the extra four minutes to help Free State escape with an 80-73 victory.

The Firebirds built on their lead throughout overtime, with Gudde scoring inside and going 2-for-4 at the free-throw line. Backup senior forward Darian Lewis (seven points, seven rebounds, three charges drawn) scored twice in transition in OT.

“I don’t know if we deserved to win,” first-year FSHS coach Sam Stroh said afterward, shaking his head, “but credit to our guys. We stuck together and made some free throws when we needed to and got a stop here and there in the overtime.”

Although the Firebirds only made 28 of 58 freebies on the night, all those fouls the drew led to disqualifications for four key Lancers, who also created some foul problems of their own in the second half with a pair of technical fouls.

However, following both technicals, Free State missed at the line, with a man on an island shooting by himself. Gudde, junior Jacob Pavlyak and junior Sloan Thomsen combined to go 0-for-7 immediately following SME technicals.

Stroh could tell his players were in a funk following those spotlight misses.

“It’s like every single guy who came to the line, they’re thinking about it,” the coach said, “instead of just going through their motions and going through their routine and knocking them down.”

Lancers senior center Luke Ehly sent the game to OT with a buzzer-beating layup to close the fourth quarter, 19 seconds after Gudde went 1-for-2 on a trip to the charity stripe.

“We need to do a better job of finishing off games. But a win’s a win,” Gudde said after the Firebirds (3-1) finally put away SME (1-5).

Gudde shot 9-for-19 at the stripe on a night the Firebirds’ fourth-quarter shooting at the foul line (12-for-27) nearly cost them.

“I missed a lot of free throws. We all did,” Gudde said. “We just all kept our heads up. There were points in the games where we struggled and I thought we just did a good job of finishing the game as best we could with what we had out on the floor.”

Senior FSHS guard Kristian Rawls scored 13 points by doing better at the foul line than anybody else, going 9-for-11 before fouling out with 2:03 left in regulation.

“It’s good for our guys to be in these type of situations,” Stroh said, “on the road, first league game.”

FREE STATE (80)

Kristian Rawls 2-4 9-11 13, Chrision Wilburn 2-3 2-3 6, Sloan Thomsen 1-3 0-4 3, Jacob Pavlyak 2-5 3-9 7, Hunter Gudde 9-11 9-19 30, Jay Dineen 2-2 0-0 5, Darian Lewis 3-6 1-4 7, Shannon Cordes 1-3 1-2 3, Simon McCaffrey 0-0 3-6 3, Reece White-Downing 1-1 0-0 3. Totals 23-38 28-58 80.

SM EAST (73)

Alex Glazer 3-7 9-13 16, Ryan Dornbusch 0-5 1-2 1, Davis Morrison 0-2 3-4 3, Jay Guastello 7-10 2-3 17, Mark Ward 1-2 0-0 2, Henry Sullivan 2-5 4-5 8, Luke Ehly 5-7 3-4 13, Trevor Thompson 5-8 1-1 11, Liam George 1-1 0-2 2, Jack Schoemann 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 24-51 23-34 73.

Free State 13 20 16 18 13–80

SM East 6 15 18 28 6–73

Three-point goals: FSHS 6-10 (Gudde 3, Dineen, White-Downing, Thomsen); SME 2-18 (Glazer, Guastello). Fouled out: FSHS: Rawls, Wilburn; SME: Morrison, Guastello, Ward, Ehly, Thompson. Turnovers: FSHS 16, SME 13.