Rivalry week made its next stop in Coal City where Raleigh County rivals Independence and Liberty renewed acquaintances.
In a rivalry that has been a little interesting on the hardwood, the battle Wednesday night had a little extra sauce of the spaghetti.
The added emotion came from the fact that the Patriots had a couple of well-known transfers that donned a Raiders jersey last year.
“It was an emotional night. I am playing against family that I am used to coaching and our kids are used to going to school with those guys. It will be emotional,” Liberty head coach Chad Williams said. “I was honestly surprised we didn’t lay a bigger egg in the first quarter. We just have to learn to play through that kind of stuff and be the basketball team that we want to be. We can’t worry about who is on the other side.”
In the end, basketball was all that mattered, and on this night, the game went to the home team which earned a 62-50 win.
The final score was not indicative of what was a tight battle throughout.
The visitors were twice within four points in the first three minutes of the fourth quarter and trailed by just five with 2:49 to play.
“I like how we finished the game. We made our foul shots at the end and that was big where we have struggled some at the foul line this year,” Independence head coach Shawn Jenkins said. “We got the ball in Ashton Arthur’s hands and he is our best foul shooter.”
Arthur made all four of his shots from the charity stripe and Indy was 8 for 10 overall in the final eight minutes.
“I told the guys that we are showing growth in every single game. We did what we set out to do tonight,” Williams said. “We out-rebounded them and I thought we were (more)scrappy than they were. We wanted to send a message to the kids that left that we were going to keep them in check. It got away from us at the end. Everything is a growing spell with this team and (Independence) still has to come to us.”
Liberty took its last lead with with 2:53 to play in the opening quarter on back-to-back scored from cross-country standout, Jadon Acord.
Independence answered with a 3-pointer from Arthur and built a 15-11 lead after one quarter.
The Raiders could not find the range in the second period, scoring just one point over the first six minutes of the quarter, but Indy could not take full advantage of the drought.
Although the Patriots built an 11-point lead, they could not close out the Raiders who ended the half on a 9-2 run.
Leading by four at the break, Indy came out of the dressing room strong pushing the lead back to 11 points in less than three minutes.
“I tried to keep (Liberty) off-balance. We played a little bit of everything,” Jenkins said. We came out and went man-to-man after halftime and I think we threw them off-balance a little bit when we went back to our half-court trap. We got some easy steals and buckets to extend the lead.”
Once again Liberty responded with a 7-0 spurt before the Patriots steadied the ship and led by eight after a buzzer beater by former Liberty standout Ethan Williams from the three-quarter court line.
“We have two guys that should be playing for us and they are a threat. They are a weapon every time they are on the floor. We said we were going to keep them in check and I thought we did that,” Williams said. “I think everybody thought we were going to come up here and get blown out. If we play hard, keep our head for four quarters and do the right things, I don’t think there are too many teams we can’t play with.”
Two straight buckets by Liberty cut the lead to four, but a couple of careless turnovers allowed the Patriots to move the lead right back to eight just over a minute into the final quarter.
“It was frustrating because the things that we talked about were the things that we did the total opposite of,” Williams said. “Take care of the basketball. Rebound the ball and dictate the pace for the rest of the game. We didn’t because we turned it over. Both times were not because of good defense, it was self inflicted bad passes.”
A pair of scores from Acord once again trimmed the lead to four points, but during that stretch, Liberty missed three crucial foul shots which prevented it from cutting deeper into the margin.
Scores from Chris Lilly and Dalton Williams separated the game and the Raiders could get no closer than five points down the stretch.
“There are no hard feelings. Things happen. It doesn’t make it any easier though,” Williams said. “I always look forward to this game, but at the same time I was dreading this game. It is not easy to see family members and kids that should be playing for you and being huge assets to that team. There was a little smack talking going on, but nothing that got out of hand.”
The two teams will meet again Feb. 20 in Glen Daniel.
L: 11 10 15 14 – 50
I: 15 10 19 18 – 62
Liberty
Kris Bowman 14, Jadon Acord 14, Riley Marty 10, Colten Acord 2, Talan McGraw 4, Kevin Smith 6.
Independence
Ethan Williams 3, Sylas Nelson 21, Ashton Arthur 23, Degan Williams 2, Dalton Williams 4, Chris Lilly 2, Logan Mink 7.
