EMPORIA — For the second time in three games, the Free State girls basketball team nearly let a double-digit advantage slip away.

However, timely defensive stops late in the game helped the Firebirds hang on to defeat Topeka West 47-42 in the consolation semifinals of the Glacier’s Edge Tournament on Friday at Emporia High School.

“We talked at halftime (about) coming out and putting the game away and not letting up… then we let them back in it,” Free State head coach Summer Frantz said. “We were just really sped up and really tight in the fourth quarter. We just have to get better at — when we have a chance to put a team away — doing it and not letting them hang around.”

Freshman Morgan McClorey was a spark plug for Free State, leading the team with 25 points while playing a key role on defense.

“She was a huge part of us being able to pull (the win) out,” Frantz said. “Offensively and defensively, she was someone that we definitely went to throughout the game.”

A key emphasis for the team as of late has been playing through the interior, as Frantz says the coaches keep track of how many paint touches the team gets. McClorey’s play was a benefit in getting the ball inside, as she drove into the lane often and took easy shots or passed off to teammates for better looks.

“We got a lot more paint touches,” Frantz said. “That’s something we thought we had a chance to do against (Topeka West), so I was happy to see that.”

After the Firebirds lost in the first round of the tournament to Emporia on Thursday, McClorey said that the win on Friday was an important bounce-back game, so that the team could regain its momentum going into Saturday.

Although Free State had a sluggish start to Friday’s game, in which its first field goal came from Addie Fulscher nearly two minutes in, the team forced early turnovers and pushed the tempo, creating opportunities to score in transition.

In total, the Firebirds forced eight turnovers in the first quarter thanks to a full-court press and a few bad passes by the Chargers.

“Pressuring isn’t something that we are probably going to do a ton, especially in the Sunflower League, but tonight that’s what we needed to do,” Frantz said. ”

McClorey made Free State’s first 3-pointer of the game and added a bucket to make the score 11-3, while freshman Quinlynn Vail and Fulscher each made 3s of their own down the stretch, as four additional points via the free throw line gave the Firebirds a 21-5 lead after the first quarter.

The second was much more even, with the two teams trading buckets throughout the period. Fulscher’s second 3-pointer of the game gave the Firebirds their biggest lead of the half at 18. They led by that margin on two more occasions, lastly with 3:27 left in the half after a 3-pointer by McClorey.

Topeka West was able to get to the free-throw line late in the second quarter, but failed to convert its opportunities into points, and still managed to make three free throws in the final two minutes, ending the half on a modest 5-1 run to make the Free State halftime lead 32-18.

“That’s not how you want to go into halftime, but at the same time, I would hope that that would be kind of a break and an end to the run,” Frantz said.

McClorey was the key to the Firebirds’ offense in the third quarter, as she scored 12 of the team’s 13 points, using her ability to get downhill and finish in the paint to her advantage.

“Yesterday, I didn’t have my best game, so today I was just trying to get more shots up,” McClorey said.

The outburst helped Free State lead 45-30 at the end of the third, as Topeka West outscored Free State 6-1 to end the quarter after the Firebirds led 44-24.

The Firebirds had a shaky fourth quarter, scoring just two points in the period while allowing the Chargers to score the first 10 points of the closing stanza to make the lead just five points. Free throws late by McClorey and Vail were just enough to get Free State over the finish line, improving its record to 7-7.

The Firebirds will be in the fifth-place game on Saturday at 11:45 a.m., taking on Blue Valley High School. The Tigers defeated a fellow Sunflower League opponent in Shawnee Mission West, 36-25, on Friday.

“Blue Valley will be a tough one; they’re very big, so their size will be something that we have to game-plan for,” Frantz said. “We’ll go home and get back to Lawrence, but then get ready for them in the morning.”