LHS girls approaching City Showdown as regular game

When Olivia Lemus and Skylar Drum started playing in Lawrence High’s girls basketball program, they always felt like underdogs when they stepped on the floor for the City Showdown.

Now seniors, the script has flipped.

“No one expected us to win,” Drum remembered.

The Lions have won three straight games in the crosstown clash against Free State and are trying to treat tonight’s game — which starts at 5:30 p.m. at Lawrence — as the same as any other game.

Lawrence (15-4, 7-3 in Sunflower League) enters with a four-game winning streak. The Lions already have their most wins in a season since their 21-4 record in 2008, when they won a state title.

But they aren’t satisfied with what they’ve accomplished with the postseason upcoming.

“We’re not surprised,” Lemus said. “We knew this is what we were capable of doing last season. We expected to have a little more wins than we do, but it’s just been great.”

LHS coach Jeff Dickson added: “All of these kids have made a bigger commitment to getting better and being together and putting in time. We’ve got a lot of kids that have worked really hard to elevate the program and get us to play the way that way we are.”

Approaching the City Showdown as a regular day, despite the larger-than-normal crowd, the Lions said they don’t want to put too much emphasis on one game.

“When I was younger, there was more of a hype or pressure for LHS to beat Free State,” Lemus said. “Now that I’ve gotten older, it’s not that big of a deal to me. It’s just like another game. It’s more fun to play in because of the crowd and everything.”

The Firebirds (12-7, 6-4) have won four of their past five games — all without senior standout Madison Piper, who suffered a season-ending ankle injury. That included the program’s first-ever win against Olathe South.

In those five games, Jaelyn Two Hearts is averaging 11.4 points, Cameryn Thomas has added 9.4 points per game.

Two Hearts scored 15 points against LHS in a 47-42 loss in the first round of the City Showdown in December.

“They’ve never been a one-player team,” Lawrence coach Jeff Dickson said of the Firebirds. “(Piper) a really, really good player, but they’ve got other kids who are really good players too. Obviously that’s someone who has been a pretty dominant player but they are still an extremely dangerous team.”

“We know it’s going to be a battle from start to finish,” Dickson added. “They definitely have our full attention.”