Lawrence High senior TaMiya Green pulls a rebound away from a Topeka Seaman defender Thursday, Jan. 27, 2011 at Washburn Rural High School in Topeka. The Vikings defeated the Lions 46-27 in the first round of the Capital City Classic.

Topeka ? After urging his team to get off to a good start for the last couple games, Lawrence High girls basketball coach Nick Wood finally got what he wanted on Thursday against Topeka Seaman.

Problem was, the Lions couldn’t maintain their solid start.

Senior Tamiya Green scored the first six points of the game before Seaman coach Steve Alexander called a timeout. The Vikings scored the next 12, taking a six-point lead and winning, 46-27, in the first round of the Capital City Classic at Washburn Rural.

Wood said his team did a great job getting the ball inside to Green to open the game.

“Then we just kind of let our offense sputter a little bit, tried to rush some things, and didn’t take our time to get into our offense and get into our flow,” Wood said. “We got a little too rushed.”

The second quarter didn’t go much better. Green added another basket in the paint, but the rest of the Lions were held scoreless in the first half. Seaman (6-5) took a 20-8 lead into halftime.

The Lions (3-7) started to execute better offensively in the second half, especially when they slowed it down and ran offense.

Wood wants his team to push the ball in transition to try to create an advantage, but he thought his players could have done a better job of re-evaluating after the fast-break opportunity disappeared. The Lions had 16 turnovers.

If the team is patient, he said, everything else will fall into place.

“Other girls will step up,” Wood said. “I know they will.”

One of them certainly did.

Sophomore Anna Wright, who had no varsity experience coming into Thursday’s game, scored seven points off the bench in the fourth quarter to bring the Lions within eight. Her first varsity points came on a three-point play.

Wood said Wright simply knows how to score. She hit 3-of-4 shots.

“It’s probably my fault for not getting her in earlier,” Wood said. “She came in and did an awesome job.”

Wright was one of three scorers for the Lions. Green scored 17 points and senior Emily Peterson added three.

Junior Kelsey Akin led the Vikings with 18 points.

Lawrence, the fifth seed in the tournament, plays again at 6 tonight against eighth-seeded Wichita North, which lost to top-seeded Maize. Wood knows his team will have to focus on rebounding and being patient to win.

“If we focus on stuff like that, we’ll be fine,” Wood said. “And we’re going to come out and do that tomorrow.”