Howland surges to beat Liberty

By Doug Chapin

Jared Kirin and Kyle Spence each scored 18 for the Tigers.

LIBERTY — In a game of scoring spurts, visiting Howland High put together the most decisive streak, then prevented Liberty from responding in a 74-60 victory Tuesday night.

“We switched defenses pretty well, but we allowed too much penetration,” Howland coach Don Andres said. “We tried to throw them off by changing defenses, but we aren’t where we want to be defensively.

“The way we play on offense, we’ve got to attack the basket and that’s what we did. We got a lot of fast breaks when we beat them down the floor.”

Liberty coach Dan Gorski said, “We had the two spurts, and then we’d come down and go from playing hard to individual offense, one-on-one, and that cost us.

“Both times we got back in the game we were pushing the ball, getting easy buckets in transition, but then we would just get away from it,” Gorski said.

After Howland opened an 11-6 lead, Liberty went on a 13-3 run to forge a 19-14 lead late in the first quarter. The period ended with the Leopards ahead 19-16.

With the Liberty lead at 26-22 midway through the second quarter, Howland compiled a 13-2 scoring run to open a 35-28 advantage. The half ended with the Tigers on top 35-30.

Trailing 43-34 in period three, Liberty came back at the Tigers again with another 13-3 run to take its last lead, 47-46, with 2:04 left in the quarter.

Howland immediately rallied, using a 10-0 run to push the lead back to nine, 56-47, in the first minute of the fourth quarter. From there, Liberty never got closer than six.

“We held our composure when they made their runs and then we milked the clock pretty well in the last four minutes,” Andres said. “I liked the way we milked the clock and got some easy shots.”

Both teams are big, physical and athletic and both crash the offensive boards hard. Howland ended up with a 37-30 edge on the boards, led by Tyler Scott with 12, Jared Kirin with 10 and Kyle Spence with nine. Tashaun Letlow led Liberty with nine rebounds and Isaiah Bell added six.

“I wasn’t happy with our play underneath in the first half, but the kids came around underneath in the second half,” Andres said.

“We gave up way too many points off of their offensive rebounds and when we got offensive rebounds we missed too many lay-ups,” Gorski said. “We’re trying to impress upon these guys that they’ve got to go game speed in practice.

“If you go slow in practice, when you get to game speed you can’t just expect the ball to go in. You’ve got to practice like you play. We still have to make some progress in that area.”

Kirin and Spence led Howland in scoring with 18 points each. Sophomore T.J. Lanier added 13 points before injuring his ankle in the third quarter.

Point guard Drew Guido had 12 points and nine assists and Ryan Glinn came off the bench to dish out six assists.

Anthony Cleveland led Liberty’s offense with 14 points. Letlow scored 11, Floyd Showers had 10 and Darrien White and Blair Williams tallied nine each. Williams also had four assists.

Howland plans to run more than it has in the past.

“We want to rebound and go,” Andres said. “I want the kids to have fun, but also, in the past we might not have had the talent to do some of these things. We can still overpower some teams with our size, and we’re pretty well balanced and we distribute the ball well.”

Gorski said his Leopards must weather a difficult schedule early in the season.

“I think once we get everyone on the same page and working hard for 32 minutes we’ll be OK, but we’re not there yet,” Gorski said. “Once we get to games against the teams in our tier [White] we hope to be playing better and more consistent. We’ll build on these early games and learn from them.”