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Liberty’s second-half effort trips Hubbard
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TWO TIMES 11: Liberty's Melissa Dykes (11) shoots for two over the head of Hubbard's Michelle Starkey (11) during Wednesday's matchup.
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LEOPARDS ON THE LOOSE: Liberty's Vakeyla Merriweather (5) drives to the hoop past Hubbard's Cara Julian (12) during Wednesday's game at Hubbard High School. The Leopards downed the Eagles, 61-41.
By Pete Mollica
The Leopards outscored the Eagles 34-9 in the second half and walked away with a 61-41 victory.
HUBBARD — Liberty High girls basketball coach John Hritz said his team started playing in the second half, while Hubbard’s Ross Stoffer said his Eagles quit playing in the second half.
Obviously the results were in favor of the Leopards, who outscored Hubbard 34-9 in the final two quarters and walked away with a 61-41 All-American Conference White Tier victory Wednesday night.
Liberty (6-8, 1-3) trailed the Eagles (5-9, 1-2) 32-27 at halftime, but outscored the Eagles 17-2 in the third quarter, taking control of the game and never giving Hubbard a chance at a comeback.
“We finally started playing as a team tonight in the second half,” said Hritz. “Our seniors stepped up and we even looked like a team out there.”
Still it was a junior, Shanae Thomas, who provide the big spark as she led all scorers with 20 points on 6-for-9 shooting from 3-point range.
“Shanae is our best 3-point shooter and we’ve told her if she’s open to plant her feet and let it fly and she did just that tonight,” Hritz said.
“We made a couple of adjustments at halftime because we had to do something to stop Julian [Cara] who was just killing us in the first half,” Hritz added. “She’s a good shooter, but we held her scoreless in the second half.”
Stoffer praised the Leopards.
“They came out in the second half and really took over the game, but we just stopped scoring for some reason,” Stoffer said. “They changed defenses on us in the second half, but that’s still no excuse for scoring two points in the third quarter. Then when the offense is struggling it takes off on the defense in the final quarter.”
Thomas connected on back-to-back 3-point shots early in the first quarter to jump Liberty to an 8-2 lead, but the Eagles came right back to take a 10-8 lead behind Julian and Paige Seech and then the two teams battled neck and neck to finish tied after the first quarter 16-16.
Julian connected on both her 3-pointers in the second quarter, while Brittany Bullock added three field goals as the Eagles led 32-27 at intermission.
But disaster struck in the third quarter for the Eagles, who were just 1-for-9 from the field and added six turnovers as the Leopards pulled away with eight points from Thomas and four more from Ashley Venable to lead 44-34.
Hubbard made a brief comeback to open the final quarter as Jill Hinkle scored the first five points and the Eagles were within five at 44-39, but the Leopards then went on a 15-2 run led by Chi Chi and Vakeyla Merriweather, who scored 11 of those 15 points to put the game away.
Julian finished with 12 points to lead the Eagles, while Venable and Vakeyla Merriweather each added 11 points for the Leopards.
mollica@vindy.com