Overland Park ? Lawrence High’s girls basketball players saw their 17-point lead at the beginning of the second quarter shrink to just two midway through the third quarter on Thursday against Shawnee Mission South.

The Lions had seen leads slip through their hands before, but this time they were ready to fight back. They forced turnovers and made layups to pull away for a 67-56 victory in the first round of sub-state at SM South.

After the Raiders cut the score to 40-38 with 3:26 left in the third quarter, the Lions responded with a 10-0 run to end the period. Senior point guard Marissa Pope made two layups in the stretch while junior Alexis Boyd, sophomore Skylar Drum and sophomore Olivia Lemus added points.

With a 12-point lead entering the fourth quarter, LHS went 17-for-20 at the free throw line in the fourth quarter, including a perfect 8-for-8 from freshman E’lease Stafford. SM South never pulled closer than six points.

“Usually we shake and we rattle and we let them take the lead,” Pope said. “But this time we kept attacking the rim and E’lease hit some big free throws. I guess we had more confidence this game.”

Despite bus problems that had LHS arriving 45 minutes later than usual, the Lions (7-14) were nearly unstoppable in the first quarter. They opened with a 13-2 lead in the first six minutes with a three from Stafford, a layup-and-the-foul by Pope and inside buckets by Boyd, Lemus and senior forward Matia Finley.

LHS shot 8-for-12 in the first quarter and scored on its first five possessions, and last five possessions, in the period. It was the polar opposite of the last time the Lions played at SM South when they fell into a 13-0 hole to open the game in an eventual 13-point loss.

“It’s pretty rare at anything in life to basically have a do-over,” LHS coach Jeff Dickson said. “For us to have a chance to come back here, same place, bigger stakes and have a chance to redeem ourselves, our kids were locked in and ready to do that. That’s exactly what we did.”

After the Lions pushed their lead to 24-7 in the opening minutes of the second quarter, the Raiders (7-14) found their rhythm on offense behind 5-foot-7 senior Taylor Cossairt, who scored 18 points in the first half, including a buzzer-beating three-pointer before halftime. The three before the horn cut Lawrence’s lead to 34-30.

The Lions never gave up their lead, though SM South was within three points at three different times in the third quarter. Each time the Raiders looked on the verge of pulling ahead, Pope was there to fight them back. The 5-foot-3 point guard who had never won a sub-state game in her four-year varsity career wasn’t going to let that happen, scoring eight points in the period.

“When they cut it to two and we were in that timeout,” Dickson said, “I was like, ‘Hey, we’ve been here before. We know how to handle this the right way this time. We need to keep attacking. We don’t need to get tight. We just need to keep going to the basket and doing what we do.'”

Pope, who scored a game-high 27 points on 8-of-14 shooting, couldn’t be stopped on her drives to the basket. She made her first seven shots inside of the three-point line, and drew enough fouls to go 11-for-16 at the charity stripe.

“Some of them I was kind of suspect about them going in,” Pope said of her acrobatic layups through defenders. “Last time I had one of my biggest games here (24 points) and I knew that they couldn’t really guard me so I just wanted to attack, get to the rim and help my team.”

The Lions will go on the road to face top-seeded Shawnee Mission Northwest in the sub-state finals at 7 p.m. Saturday. The winner will move on to the state tournament next week in Wichita.

LAWRENCE (67)

Olivia Lemus 3-4 4-4 10, E’lease Stafford 1-4 8-8 11, Marissa Pope 8-14 11-16 27, Matia Finley 2-5 0-0 4, Alexis Boyd 3-10 0-0 6, Skylar Drum 3-4 1-2 7, Rebecca Finley 1-3 0-0 2, Asia Goodwin 0-0 0-0 0, Gracie Reinsch 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 21-44 24-30 67.

SM SOUTH (56)

Megan Stollsteimer 3-6 2-3 8, Elizabeth Holmes 1-6 2-8 4, Madi McAvoy 2-9 2-2 7, Karoline Shelton 0-5 0-0 0, Nikki Norton 0-5 0-0 0, Clara Sitas 0-5 0-0 0, Ashlie Fischer 0-3 0-0 0, Taylor Cossairt 8-13 3-6 22, Robyn MacDonald 1-1 2-4 4, Sidney Holler 4-7 0-0 11. Totals 19-60 11-23 56.

Lawrence 20 14 16 17 — 67

SM South 7 23 8 18 — 56

Three-point field goals: Lawrence 1-6 (Stafford); SM South 7-26 (Cossairt 3, Holler 3, McAvoy). Fouled out: M. Finley. Turnovers: Lawrence 18, SM South 18.