Patriots turn their luck around with win over Sultan

Whitaker finished with 24 points leading the charge.

A loss to Juanita on the road in their last game out on Jan. 22 was not in the cards for the Liberty girls basketball team. A team in Juanita they beat by 18 points the first time they played.

Since Dec. 20 the Patriots have lost four out of their last six games. They are hoping a convincing win against Sultan on Jan. 23 can help turn their season around with four games left on the schedule.

Liberty clobbered the Turks 52-20 and now have won two out of their last three games, with a four-point Juanita loss as their one defeat. “We’ve definitely had some injuries and people not play… But when we are all together we are pretty strong,” Ella Whitaker said.

That loss to Juanita was prevalent on the minds of the Patriots as they entered the game against Sultan.

A Thursday night game in the middle of January is not the most dramatic of storylines. The Patriots, when announced for the starting lineups, could hear every conversation throughout the gymnasium, that is how quiet it was against Sultan. So it was on seniors like Ella Whitaker to bring the energy and they did, jumping out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter.

At the end of the first quarter, Liberty was up 20-7 and Whitaker had 11 first quarter points and she finished the first half with 15.

“In these games where you are up by 20 points to start it is hard to find your own energy throughout the game, but our bench does a really good job of bringing energy,” Whitaker said.

The Patriot defense deployed a full-court press against Sultan which caused numerous problems for the Turks. In the first half, Sultan scored just nine points and struggled mightily to get the ball over the half court line.

Whitaker talked about how the full court press gets people involved and allowed them to rotate players in and out of the game, to make sure that there are plenty of fresh legs on the floor.

“We usually play 6-7 kids so it’s helpful to get that break. It’s easier to rotate than when you’re playing man all the time,” Whitaker said.

In the second quarter, Sultan scored two points and in the third quarter they scored two points as well.

Outside of Whitaker, no Patriot scored more than nine points (Addison Tran). But six other Liberty players recorded a made basket. Seeing underclassman start to find a rhythm alongside the older players is something that Whitaker thinks can help Liberty down the stretch.

“I think our younger girls did good this game. We have a lot of veterans in our starting lineup. We’ve been starting for three years so we know what we are doing,” Whitaker said.

As it stands Liberty is third in 3A KingCo behind Bellevue and Mercer Island. The Islanders will take the top seed in the playoffs due to them being in the highest tier, despite their 3-10 record.

But second place is still in play as Bellevue is 6-1 in league play and is still on the Liberty schedule on Jan. 31 at home. Until that game Liberty has to play Hazen at home and Mount Si on the road, but the dance with Bellevue is circled on the calendar.

“We want to beat Bellevue, that’s our biggest goal. We just want to beat Bellevue,” Whitaker said.