It was a rough return to the sidelines for Seabury Academy girls basketball coach Nick Taylor.

Taylor was back on the bench after missing one game following the birth of his son. Unfortunately, the game back was a 47-21 loss to Olathe Christian.

“It was tough coming back from my wife having a baby,” Taylor said. “I didn’t want to come back this way, but I knew coming into the game that Olathe Christian was a pretty good team.

“We just didn’t do the fundamentals; we didn’t take care of the ball; we didn’t shoot the ball; we didn’t get the ball past their press and we run our stuff daily and we know our stuff; we’re just not running it right now.”

The breakdown in fundamentals continues to haunt the Seahawks as they turned the ball over 34 times against the Warriors.

“Almost every game so far we’ve been high 30s or low 40s,” the Seabury girls coach said. “If we can minimize that to half – 20 turnovers – I’d be happy with that. We’re just not mentally thinking about it. We’re really just throwing the ball right to the defense.”

The Seahawks also welcomed back Melissa Burch from vacation. Burch didn’t show any cobwebs down low after hauling in a game-high 16 rebounds to go with her four points.

“She’s very good at rebounding, she gets good position, and she allows herself the chance to get a rebound,” Taylor said about Burch. “She’s probably my hardest-working player right now. If we can just get her to shoot a little bit more and score inside, we’d be a lot better.”

Olathe Christian 63, Seabury Academy 50

Turnovers were the least of the worries for the Seabury boys squad. Turning the ball over 17 times – as opposed to Olathe Christian’s 22 – wasn’t as hard to swallow as the 52-32 rebounding disadvantage and the 31 percent field-goal shooting.

“I can probably count eight to 10 layups we missed – wide open underneath the basket,” Seabury coach Matthew Downing Jr. said. “But we did get the shots we wanted; we just couldn’t convert.”

The Seahawks did get a bit of a boost in the fourth quarter from Max Cannon.

After getting two points early in the first quarter, Cannon was sidelined with an illness until late into the third quarter. Cannon scored eight more points – six in the fourth quarter – to lead Seabury in scoring.

“We were trying to spot his minutes in the first half (when) he was really hurting,” Downing said. “In the second half gutted it out and came back in and did what he could. We kind of talked about it and he said he wanted to give it another go and I basically explained to him that if you’re hurt, you’re hurt, but if you’re not, gut it out – don’t be either-or – and he did that.”

Cannon’s total followed closely by Tim Stuart, who scored six of his eight points in the final period.

Downing also got another solid performance from freshman point guard Ryan Gutierrez, who had five points, six assists and four rebounds – second to Scotty King’s 10 boards for tops on the team.

“I think I’m just getting a little more comfortable,” said Gutierrez, who opened the game with a three-pointer. “In the first game (of the season) I was a little bit nervous, but I just got a little more comfortable playing – it’s just basketball.”