Trailing by 10 points with six minutes left on Friday against Mill Valley, Free State High boys basketball coach Sam Stroh told his team to stay calm.

The Firebirds didn’t do anything differently on either end of the court. They just knew they needed to stay the course. Once the Firebirds refocused, they scored on their final 11 possessions in a 68-63 comeback victory at FSHS.

“I thought it was no time to panic,” Stroh said. “We took a timeout and just talked as a group. We had to just chip away. We weren’t going to win the game in one or two possessions.”

Following the Free State timeout, senior 6-foot-3 point guard Kristian Rawls scored on a layup-and-the-foul bucket, starting a 10-0 run that eventually tied the game with three minutes remaining.

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