Free State senior Finn Moore balances football, baseball before final year

Finn Moore’s senior year starts before sunrise. He is at Free State football workouts at 6:45 a.m., then back later for baseball practice with his club team, a daily grind that shows how much the Firebirds are asking of their leaders before fall.

That routine carries extra weight at Lawrence Free State High School, 4700 Overland Dr., where Moore is trying to finish his career with longtime teammates before they scatter to their next stages. He is not treating the summer as downtime. He is using it to build toward a final season that could define how Free State is remembered this year, both in football and in baseball.

The stakes are real after Free State baseball reached the 2026 Kansas Class 6A state championship game on May 30. The Firebirds fell 4-3 to Washburn Rural at Eck Stadium in Wichita, and Moore was in the lineup at second base for the title game. That near miss sharpens his senior-year goal. He is not chasing success in the abstract; he is coming off a team that was one play from a state championship.

Moore’s football background adds another layer. Free State’s season ended Nov. 7, 2025, with a 38-31 loss to Shawnee Mission Northwest, and Moore was on the field that night as a junior. Now he enters his last season with a year of varsity experience behind him and a clear role ahead: set the tone, compete every day and show younger players what the program expects.

That is part of what makes his dual-sport workload stand out in Douglas County. At a time when many high school athletes narrow their focus, Moore is splitting his summer between two demanding programs and doing it while keeping his eyes on the bigger picture. The summer district calendar for Lawrence Public Schools USD 497 has continued into late June, underscoring that Free State’s offseason is still very much in motion as senior leaders like Moore prepare for the fall.

For Free State, Moore’s routine is more than busy. It is a sign of buy-in after a baseball run that fell just short and before a football season that will ask the Firebirds to turn leadership into wins.