Seabury's Bria Phipps looks for help as she's pressured by a Hyman Brand player. Phipps scored 19 in Seabury's 75-21 loss Tuesday at Seabury.

Bishop Seabury's Jamie Fisher (44) goes up for a rebound against Hyman Brand's Hannah Towle (35).

Bishop Seabury's Willow Garcia (33) takes the ball away from Hyman Brand's Hillary Gutovitz (11) Tuesday night.

Seabury Academy’s Bria Phipps probably will finish among the leading scorers on the Lawrence area girls basketball scene this season.

And she’ll need to if her Seahawks team is to stand any chance of staying in games.

During Tuesday night’s season-opening 75-21 thumping from Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy, Phipps accounted for 19 of Seabury’s 21 points. She also was the only player on her team to make a shot from the field, hitting seven of them while her teammates combined to go 0-for-18.

As one of just two players with varsity experience, Phipps was realistic about the season.

“It’s always great to come out with a winning season, but even if we don’t, I’m just looking for improvement,” Phipps said. “I think knowing that we only have two returning players really discourages us because that means six of our players have never played varsity ball before.”

That became apparent soon after tipoff, when the Rams opened a 20-0 lead.

“I knew coming into the season she was going to have to score a lot,” Seabury head coach Nick Taylor said of Phipps. “But I didn’t know she was going to have to score that much. She feels bad that she has to shoot so much, but I told her she’s going to have to. Hopefully, some of the other kids can see that and get open and start making some shots.”

Hyman Brand Boys 62, Seabury 38

Despite being up one point after the first quarter against Hyman Brand, Seabury Academy boys coach Matthew Downing Jr. was flabbergasted with his team.

“How many turnovers do we have?” Downing asked his players between quarters before answering his own question. “Nine turnovers. If we didn’t have those turnovers …”

His voice trailed off to let the comments sink in.

Nobody must have heard him.

The Seahawks gave away 25 turnovers and got blown out in the second half, after a competitive first half.

“I knew going in, I told them the two biggest obstacles we were going to have were taking care of the ball and rebounding the ball,” Downing said. “I know it’s going to be a struggle for us to get second-shot opportunities, so we can’t afford to turn the ball over and give up opportunities to score.”