Overland Park ? Seven years later, and the memory still lingered Tuesday night for Lawrence High girls basketball coach Kristin Mallory.

She hadn’t forgotten her first game on the sidelines as LHS’s coach. It was against perennial power Overland Park Aquinas.

“We got beat by 27,” Mallory said. “In the past, they beat us by 40 points three times in one year.”

It took a while, but the Lions finally scored that elusive first win against OP Aquinas under Mallory, cruising, 48-36, on the road Tuesday in the championship game of the Saints Classic.

The contest was supposed to have taken place 45 days earlier but was postponed because of inclement weather. But hey, when you’ve waited seven years for something like this, what’s another month and a half?

“Every year, Lawrence High usually loses to them,” senior guard Danielle Bird said. “It was real big for us to win this game.”

The Lions did it with a suffocating defense in the middle quarters that left the Saints scratching their heads and Aquinas coach Rick Hetzel fuming.

LHS led just 12-10 following a competitive first quarter when Mallory had her team switch up its strategy. The Lions went to a matchup zone, combining a 2-3 zone with man-to-man defense, and the Saints fell apart.

By the time Lions guard Haley Parker scored a fastbreak layup three minutes into the second quarter, LHS led 20-10, Hetzel had called his second timeout in a matter of seconds to lambaste his players and Lawrence was on its way to a surprisingly easy victory.

During the second and third quarters, the Saints made one field goal during a span of 13 minutes, 50 seconds.

The Lions (9-1) paid particular attention to containing Saints freshman guard DaShawn Harden, who already is receiving interest from Kansas University.

Harden finished with five points – all in the first quarter – on 2-of-6 shooting.

“We worked a lot on stopping DaShawn,” Bird said of the LHS practices in the week leading up to the title game. “If we stopped her, they couldn’t really get outside shots. She penetrates and passes it out.

“Our defense was pretty good.”

That’s putting it mildly.

The Saints have been state runners-up in each of the past two seasons, and they haven’t finished worse than third in a decade.

Against LHS, Aquinas shot just 29 percent (11-of-38) and, for once, it was the team in over its head.

“They had long possessions,” Mallory said. “They couldn’t figure out what we were doing.”

The Lions built their biggest lead with 2:40 left in the third quarter. Bird’s three-pointer gave LHS a 37-18 advantage before a mini, 9-0 spurt by Aquinas to end the quarter cut the deficit to 10.

Lawrence forward Tania Jackson responded, though, scoring eight of her team-leading 12 points in the final quarter to help keep the Saints at bay.

Aquinas never got closer than nine points following the Lions’ second-quarter onslaught.

Bird finished with 11 points and was named the tournament’s most valuable player. Jasmyn Turner also tallied double digits with 10 points.

When the game was over, the Lions posed for pictures – photos sure to fill a scrapbook someday and sure to help push a once unshakable memory out of Mallory’s head.

“This is for all those kids that never got an Aquinas win,” Mallory said before naming off a few of her former players. “We’re glad to get one for them.”

In one final snapshot, players held their index fingers high in the air, signifying an age-old sports expression: “We’re No. 1.”

After dismantling the Saints Tuesday, LHS showed it may be closer than ever to reaching that plateau.