Free State senior guard Shannon Cordes fires a long jumper against Shawnee Mission South Tuesday.

Overland Park ? For quite a few moments Tuesday, Free State’s boys basketball team looked like an offensive juggernaut.

During a couple of other moments, the Firebirds couldn’t do much right.

Free State’s 66-57 road victory over Shawnee Mission South had an all-too-familiar ring to it. The Firebirds took an early lead, lost the lead, but corrected their mistakes in the final minutes to walk away with a win.

“It seems like we do this a lot,” FSHS senior Jay Dineen said. “It’s not fun. It gets us all nervous. It gets our coaches all nervous. We need to learn to keep the lead.”

After leading by as many as 14 points at the end of the first quarter, the Firebirds found themselves trailing by seven, 44-37, with 5:55 left.

From there, the Firebirds (13-4, 8-0 in Sunflower League) returned to their offensive dominance. They scored on their last 13 possessions.

That included a stretch of three consecutive and-one layups for a 9-0 run to re-take the lead from seniors Jacob Pavlyak, Dineen and Garrett Luinstra. Dineen helped start the momentum with a 3-pointer from the wing earlier in the period.

The Firebirds, who hold a two-game lead in the league standings, never trailed again. They made 12-of-13 free throws in the fourth quarter. Leading by six with under a minute left, senior forward Cameron Clark blocked a shot off of the backboard, sprinted down the court and was found by a teammate for a two-handed slam.

“That’s kind of who we are,” Free State coach Sam Stroh said of the close games.

In the first quarter, Free State senior guard Shannon Cordes planted himself in the left corner and couldn’t miss. He scored 11 of his 15 points in the first eight minutes, including eight straight points with a pair of threes from the same spot.

The Firebirds made six straight 3-pointers in the first quarter, including a buzzer-beater from Luinstra (game-high 19 points) for a 25-11 lead.

“Shannon has done a better job of defending and getting to the paint,” Stroh said. “Now he knocked down some outside shots. That’s going to stretch defenses out more for us, so he had a huge, huge first half.”

Just as fast as they started, the Firebirds lost their rhythm. There was a six-minute scoring drought in the second quarter, which included seven straight missed shots following a layup by junior Simon McCaffrey.

During the third quarter, Free State only scored one basket in the final six minutes — a layup from Clark, assisted by Dineen (14 points, five assists, two steals). The Firebirds had four straight turnovers in one stretch, which helped the Raiders to a 14-2 run, taking their first lead since the opening minutes.

“We stopped making threes,” Pavlyak said. “We stopped moving the ball. We didn’t get inside. We didn’t get to the free throw line. Just bad offense. There’s no other way to put it.”

But as the Firebirds have done all season in league play, they found a way to win.

Free State will celebrate its Senior Night against Olathe East at 7 p.m. Friday at FSHS.

FREE STATE (66)

Garrett Luinstra 5-10 6-7 19, Simon McCaffrey 2-4 0-0 5, Jay Dineen 3-4 7-9 14, Shannon Cordes 6-9 0-0 15, Cameron Clark 4-6 0-0 8, Jalan Robinson 0-1 0-0 0, Sloan Thomsen 0-1 0-0 0, Jacob Pavlyak 1-3 3-3 5. Totals 21-38 16-19 66.

SM SOUTH (57)

AJ Webster 5-9 0-2 10, Nick Wissel 4-10 1-2 11, Isaac Soares 4-8 2-2 12, David Parks 8-13 0-0 16, Ethan Iba 2-3 0-0 4, Jake Potthoff 2-7 0-0 4, Adam Bendrick 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 25-50 3-6 57.

Free State 25 4 8 29 — 66

SM South 11 12 15 19 — 57

Three-point goals: Free State 8-15 (Luinstra 3, Cordes 3, McCaffrey, Dineen); SM South 4-13 (Wisseel 2, Soares 2). Turnovers: Free State 15, SM South 10.