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Liberty girls clinch first district final in decades
Williamson, Gilchrist power Liberty to district final against Southeast
By Tom Williams
STRUTHERS
The biggest shot of Sharda Williamson’s varsity career helped the Liberty High girls basketball team secure its first district championship game in at least 30 years.
In Wednesday’s 50-43 win over top-seeded Salem, the Leopards had an eight-point lead early in the fourth quarter. Then the Quakers surged with a 6-0 run.
The Leopards’ Nysa Gilchrist stopped the Quakers’ run with a basket. Then Williamson took aim and launched a successful 3-pointer for a 43-36 lead.
The Quakers never recovered.
Williamson said she felt confident when she released her shot.
“It felt good so I knew it was in,” Williamson said, adding that it was “probably the biggest [basket].”
The win sends fifth-seeded Liberty (15-10) to Saturday’s Division III district final against third-seeded Southeast (19-3), which ousted second-seeded South Range, 55-50, in the other semifinal game at Struthers Fieldhouse.
Liberty officials say it’s the first time the Leopards have advanced this far since the late 1980s.
“Relief,” said Deirdre Watson, Liberty‘s fourth-year head coach, of what she felt when Williamson connected.
“We lost a couple of games that when we were up, started to stall the ball and then got nervous and wouldn’t shoot,” Watson said. “I called a timeout and told them, ‘You have to shoot the ball, don’t be nervous, you’re not going to win by not shooting it.’
“And they took the shots ... and their confidence [grew],” Watson said.
Williamson and Gilchrist led the Leopards with 18 points apiece. Delia Watson scored 10 points.
For the Quakers, Jaden Hamilton and Ellie Davidson each scored 12.
Salem coach Vince Nittoli said the Leopards’ physical style caught the Quakers by surprise.
“We played hard [but our] shots didn’t fall,” Nittoli said. “We had to play from behind, which we did not do a lot of this year.
“They got physical with us,” Nittoli said of the Leopards who raced to a 22-14 lead in the second quarter. “We needed to make shots and we didn’t, and they did.”
The Leopards outrebounded the Quakers, 30-18. Williamson made eight and Davidson 10.
“They killed us on the boards, they out-muscled us on the boards, on the glass,” Nittoli said.
SOUTHEAST-SOUTH RANGE
The Raiders trailed 14-8 after the first quarter and spent the final 24 minutes trying to catch up.
“[It would] go to eight, nine, [then we] cut it back to five, three,” South Range coach Tony Matisi said. “We knew they were going to slow the game down, they’ve run that press all year long.”
Matisi said the Pirates forced the Raiders “to start our offense a little higher than I really wanted to. [We] didn’t show enough patience in some of our sets.”
Sophomore Izzy Lamparty led the Raiders with 20 points and 14 rebounds.
“She’s been dynamite the last month-and-a-half,” Matisi said.
In her final varsity game, senior Bri Modic scored 12 points. The Raiders’ other seniors are Marlaina Slabach and Brooke Sauerwein.
Halle Moorehead and Rachel Neer led the Pirates with 16 points apiece.
Matisi said Saturday’s district final should be a “whale of a game.
“I love D [Watson] — what a fantastic job she’s done,” Matisi said. “Liberty kept up the pressure, wasn’t scared about shooting the open jumper.”