photo by: John Young

Free State High senior Toufik Ahmmed, center, makes a move with the ball between Olathe North defenders Girma Kassa (9) and Grolvin Molina-Mejina during their match Tuesday evening at FSHS.

Free State High senior forward Heitor Nazareth was feeling more and more pressure on Tuesday with each opportunity to score.

In the first half against Olathe North, Nazareth danced around a few defenders but his shot was stopped by a diving save. Three minutes later, he drilled a shot from the top of the 18-yard box and it went off of the cross bar.

Finally, with 29 minutes left, Nazareth received a pass from junior midfielder Nicholas Howard and he raced past O-North defenders on a counterattack.

This time, he didn’t miss.

Nazareth’s goal gave Free State’s boys soccer team some breathing room in an eventual 2-1 victory at FSHS.

“It’s very frustrating,” Nazareth said of the near-misses. “I need to practice more. It’s really frustrating. I don’t want to let the team down.”

Nazareth helped give the Firebirds an early lead, slipping a throughball to junior forward Jared Lieberman, who entered off of the bench and scored his first varsity goal in the 16th minute.

Lieberman had to beat Olathe North’s sophomore goalkeeper Cade Heikes to the ball about 25 yards away from the net, and once he did, he slipped a shot rolling to the net. With Lieberman and Heikes on the ground, O-North’s defenders tried to race to the ball before it rolled into the net, but couldn’t catch up.

“I was coming off the bench and I was just trying to keep up the tempo,” Lieberman said. “My teammates set me up perfectly and I just needed to execute. … I was a bit worried, especially because it didn’t have that much power on it. I thought the defender was going to catch up. But it worked out well.”

FSHS coach Kelly Barah added: “Jared has been unbelievable the last couple of days to be honest with you. He was even sick, so I can’t wait to see — when he’s healthy — how that looks.”

The Firebirds (3-2) made some lineup changes and players said they noticed more focus after back-to-back three-goal losses last week.

Free State was outshot on net, 16-8, but controlled possession and tempo for the first 60 minutes with strong passing in the midfield from Howard, sophomore Rowan Laufer, senior Branden Patterson and senior Cooper Moreano.

“We wanted to go back to trying to hold onto the ball,” Barah said. “We didn’t do a particularly good job the last two games. We tried to emphasize that a little bit.”

The Eagles (4-4) ramped up the intensity in the final 20 minutes, making a big push with their offense. It started when sophomore Samson Kenea drilled a shot off of the post, but it never rolled into the net and FSHS goalkeeper Jonathan Lesslie could grab the ball for one of his 15 saves.

With seven minutes left, O-North senior Trent Vaughn scored a goal on a clean shot from the top of the 18-yard box, but Lesslie made a diving stop to his left in the final minutes on a shot from Kenea to preserve the victory.

“We had some uncharacteristic turnovers that kind of helped and fed into that,” Barah said of O-North’s offensive push. “It became more of an emotional game than we really want it to be.”

But after two losses last week, the Firebirds were just happy to find a way to win, no matter how close it looked in the final minutes.

“It’s really big,” Lieberman said. “It sort of changes our mentality and gets our heads straight, which is really nice.”

Free State will play host to Shawnee Mission North at 6:30 p.m. Friday.