Cardinals Start Round 2 With League Victories

WAITSBURG - Neither Cardinals basketball team had much trouble with the Liberty Christian Patriots, beating them handily at Kison Court Friday night.

But the wins had their significance since they marked the end of the first round of league match ups with WP still undefeated in the league.

The Lady Cardinal s topped the Patriots 64-34. The points spread was already large enough during the first half to allow head coach Jerry Baker to bring out some of his younger players.

"That was our best first half of the year," Baker said. "This is one of the hardestworking teams I've ever had."

Right from the outset, the Cardinals were ahead. Krystal Harris set the tone with an early trey. Genesis Pearson was productive with field goals and foul shots. Kristen Potter's back-to-back treys with a minute and a half to go in the first quarter lifted WP 17-4 over Liberty Christian. The period ended 19-4.

It took the Patriots well into the second quarter to score another point. Shooting poorly and drawing lots of fouls, Liberty Christian scored just five more points before halftime. The half ended 31-9.

"We thought we would go back and forth the entire game, but everyone stepped up and helped the team," Harris said. "It was a very strong first half."

The second half was almost as impressive.

Liberty Christian came out aggressively, but the Cardinals quickly matched their opponents' pace, answering all points and then some. WP stepped up its intensity to match that of the Patriots and looked comfortable doing it.

At one point, Harris pulled a ball from out of bounds, quickly passed it behind her back to Pearson who laid it up into the bucket like a veteran Globetrotter.

"It just happened," Harris said afterwards, a bit at a loss to explain how it all went so smoothly, seamlessly.

By the end of the third quarter, the Cardinals had almost double the Patriots' points at 49-25. They kept the score proportionately large, ending the game 64-34.

" Knowing we've beat everyone at least once makes it a good feeling," said Harris. " Everyone has been very happy with the last few games."

Baker said one of the Patriots' principal starters was benched by a knee injury.

Normally, he said, Liberty Christian is a tough team. Baker handed it to his girls.

"You have to go back quite some time since we went this far being undefeated," he said. "These girls don't quit."

The men's team ran a few circles of its own around the Patriots. The second score of the game was a trey from Dustin Wooderchak that immediately put his team ahead 4-2. From there the Cardinals' lead built steadily until Liberty Christian's Jake Siefken scored a breathtaking trey from mid court just before the buzzer signaled the end of the first period.

"That shot took our momentum away going into the second quarter," Cardinals head coach T.J. Scott said. "They came back and they went on a run on us."

With less than five minutes to go in the half, the Patriots closed the gap and tied up the game 16-16. But the dead-even score was shortlived. Thanks in part to the Kris Cady and Zach Bartlow combination, Matt Hamilton's effective rebounding and Tre Brannock's trey, the Cardinals rebuilt their lead to 28-18 by the half.

T.J. Hofer stepped it up in the third quarter, drawing fouls and getting rebounds. He and his teammates held at least a 10-point lead and ran it up to as much as a 20-point difference.

"It was our best all-around performance all year," Scott said. "We only had eight turnovers - the lowest number of the year."

Scott too said he could not recall the last time the Cardinals won against every single league rival, including this year's third-ranked Patriots.

Although the game felt closer than the scoreboard indicated - perhaps because of the intensity of the crowd - WP's victory was never in jeopardy during the second half, thanks in large part to the Cardinals' competitive appetite, he said.

"These kids just hate to lose, and they will work hard enough to avoid it," he said. "They just outwork the other teams."