Jay Dineen and Bo Miller chase down quarterback Hunter Thomas Hunter as Free State played Olathe East Friday at ODAC.

Olathe ? With the City Showdown against Lawrence High only a week away, Free State football coach Bob Lisher expected a better performance from his team Friday against Olathe East, despite the Firebirds coming away with a 28-14 victory at the Olathe District Activity Center.

“I don’t think we played our best game by far. I don’t know if we got better from last week. We can’t continue to do that, obviously,” Lisher said. “We’ve got to refocus. We’ve got to do a better job of coaching. We’ve got to get our guys in better position to score some points and hold some teams down when we need to.”

After a scoreless first quarter, the Firebirds fell in a 7-0 hole two minutes into the second quarter when Olathe East quarterback Will Scofield score on a 1-yard quarterback sneak. The Firebirds were able to answer, though, when Zion Bowlin found pay dirt from on a 61-yard run.

“I had Jay (Dineen) pull around and get the linebacker for me, and then I just had to out-run the safeties,” Bowlin said.

Bowlin was primarily a one-man show in the Free State backfield with sophomore Jax Dineen sidelined with a knee injury. While the Firebirds expect to have Bowlin’s backfield mate back for the City Showdown, the Free State senior believed he should have been able to handle the load more efficiently. Bowlin ended the night with 152 yards and the touchdown on 26 carries.

“I think I could have ran harder because my line was blocking for me,” Bowlin said. “They run for me, they block for me — I should be running harder.”

The Free State defense followed up Bowlin’s touchdown run by forcing a turnover on the ensuing drive. Jay Dineen, Noah Kema and Gage Foster swarmed to Scofield — knocking him down and forcing a fumble, which was recovered by Drew Wise at the Olathe East 19-yard line.

Scofield remained down on the field for 20 minutes before being taking to an area hospital, but he did have feelings in his extremities prior to being carted off.

The Firebirds (5-2) were able to turn the fumble into points when play resumed with a Kameron Lake 31-yard field goal, and the 10-7 lead stood going into the break.

Scofield’s fumble marked one of three times that the Hawks coughed the ball up, but they recovered the other two. Jay Dineen capped off the first half with an interception to put an end to the Hawks final drive of the first half.

Free State nearly shut out the Hawks in the second half, but Hawks backup quarterback Hunter Thomas found Daniel Reed for a 14-yard touchdown pass with 21 seconds remaining.

“The secondary took a step back today,” Bowlin said. “If we do that against LHS, we’re probably going to get beat pretty bad.”

While Bowlin was frustrated with his personal performance on offense and defense, he credited Free State quarterback Dallas Crittenden for improving his decision making throughout the game to open up the offense. Crittenden rebounded from a slow start to complete 10 of 21 passes for 164 yards and threw a 36-yard touchdown pass to Daniel Bryant with less than two minutes remaining. The Free State quarterback also rushed for 42 yards and a touchdown on five totes.

Crittenden’s leading receiver was senior Zack Sanders, who hauled in five catches for 99 yards, including a two-point conversion.

“(Crittenden) being able to read the reads and pull the ball from me and get some yards from that is pretty good,” Bowlin said. “It opens up him being able to run and opens it up for me, too. With Zack, just throw the ball up, and he’ll go get it.”

The win for the Firebirds was their fourth straight, while the Hawks fell to 2-5 on the season. Dineen said that the Firebirds will have to come out with more energy in order to push their winning streak to five in the City Showdown.

“This our seventh game now in the season, and we’re playing like it was our first game out there. That offense is a hard offense to play against, that wing T, flex-bone kind of thing, but we practiced all week for it,” Dineen said. “We need to come out of the gate better. We played a lot better in the second half defensively until the last drive, but we need to start the game better.”

Free State 28, Olathe East 14

FS | OE

First downs 9 | 13

Rushes-yards 35-208 | 44-194

Passing yards 164 | 70

Total offense 372 | 264

Fumbles-lost 0-0 | 3-1

Penalties-yards 4-35 | 2-20

Score by quarters

Free State 0 10 10 8 — 28

Olathe East 0 7 0 7 — 14

Individual statistics

Rushing

FS: Zion Bowlin 26-152 TD; Gage Foster 4-16; Dallas Crittenden 5-42 TD.

OE: Will Scofield 4-17 TD; Jack Mason 4-18; Trevon Kearney 8-34; Dwan Washington 17-62; Ben Waldron 2-3; Hunter Thomas 8-53; Ray Lewis 1-7.

Passing

FS: Dallas Crittenden 10-21 164 TD 2-point conversion.

OE: Will Scofield 1-3 6; Hunter Thomas 2-9 64.

Receiving

FS: Zack Sanders 5-99 2-point conversion; Daniel Bryant 2-42 TD; Bo Miller 1-11; Zion Bowlin 0-0; Gage Foster 0-0; Noah Kema 1-9; Drew 1-3.

OE: TyJuan Lewis 2-35; Ray Lewis 0-0; Daniel Reed 1-35; Trevon Kearney 0-0.

HOW THEY SCORED

Second quarter

10:08 — Will Scofield 1 run. Clayton Augustyn kick. (Olathe East 7, Free State 0.)

7:18 — Zion Bowlin 61 run. Cameron Lake kick. (Free State 7, Olathe East 7.)

5:05 — Kameron Lake 31 field goal. (Free State 10, Olathe East 7.)

Third quarter

8:08 — Dallas Crittenden 7 run. Lake kick. (Free State 17, Olathe East 7.)

4:22 — Lake 40 field goal. (Free State 20, Olathe East 7.)

Fourth quarter

1:36 — Daniel Bryant 36 pass from Crittenden. Zack Sanders pass from Crittenden. (Free State 28, Olathe East 7.)

0:21 — Daniel Reed 14 pass from Hunter Thomas. Augustyn kick. (Free State 28, Olathe East 14.)