43
Pleas-ing milestone in Liberty victory
Photo
Liberty’s Asim Pleas (4) puts up a jump shot while being defended by Struthers’ Tameko Holness (10) during the third quarter Tuesday night at the Struthers Field House. Pleas made the bucket to reach 1,000 points in his high school career, and scored 24 points in Liberty’s 66-63 victory.
By Steve Wilaj
STRUTHERS
Naturally, needing 16 points for 1,000 in his career, Liberty High’s Asim Pleas was anxious heading into Tuesday night’s matchup at Struthers.
And thanks to his classmates, those nerves didn’t lessen any throughout the school day.
“I kind of felt a lot of pressure,” Pleas said. “All day in school people were asking me ‘Are you gonna do it?’ or ‘How are you gonna do it?’ and ‘When is it gonna happen?’”
He can now answer to all his classmates after a 24-point performance in Liberty’s 66-63 victory at the Struthers Field House. Pleas topped the 1,000-point mark on a put-back layup with 2:38 remaining in the third quarter.
“This means a lot to me because not too many people are able to accomplish this,” he said. “We had a lot of good basketball players come through Liberty, so to be mentioned with some of the tops like Bradley Fletcher is an honor and I just have to thank God.”
The senior guard, who had 10 points after two quarters, admitted he had to regroup at halftime and just “play basketball.”
“I’ve always had good teams and I always had good teammates from my sophomore to my senior year to help me,” Pleas said. “This is a representation of my teammates too — not just me. [It’s] also a [representation] of my family and my work ethic.”
Pleas did most of his damage in the third quarter, as the Leopards (11-8) used a 22-14 advantage to separate themselves from a halftime tie.
While Pleas finished 8 of 21 from the field, Liberty coach Dan Bubon was pleased with how he picked up the accolade in the “flow of the game.”
“He’s a great kid, a great student and everything you want in a high school athlete,” Bubon said. “He’s always at practice — stays after and works on his game. So I think everybody was really happy he got it. And we didn’t go out of our way. That was the biggest thing.”
Liberty couldn’t afford to, as Struthers (5-12) kept the pressure on and cut its deficit to 65-62 with two minutes remaining.
But Liberty’s Cameron Clark made one free throw for a 66-62 lead, and after a Tameko Holness free throw cut the deficit to three with 11 seconds remaining, Struthers missed a 3-pointer as time expired.
“We were trying not to let them get to the rim and they were pulling up and making mid-range jumpers,” Wildcats coach Joe Savko said. “It’s just a tough situation.”
Liberty — losers of three of its past four games entering the contest — shot 44 percent from the field as Lynn Bowden scored 16 points and Cameron Clark added 11.
“This is a big win leading up to the tournament,” Pleas said. “We need to get back to playing our best basketball. We were in a slump. We needed this win to get back on a roll.”
Struthers was paced by Ray’Quan Phifer’s 18 points, while Holness impressively recorded a triple-double with 10 points, 12 rebounds and 13 blocks.
“Tameko did a great job tonight,” Savko said. “We wanted to force Asim into him and get some blocked shots. It worked for the most part, but they had so much penetration and we couldn’t recover on all of it.”