High School Basketball: Lions and Cavaliers Split Hoops Doubleheader

and girls and boys met for the second time this season, but the results were the same.

The Lions won the girls contest 50-44 due to foul shooting in the final 46 seconds while South Carroll ran away in the boys game 71-42 as every Cavalier scored.

The Liberty girls improved to 4-5 in the county and 5-10 overall with the victory. South Carroll fell to 6-3 in the county and 9-6 overall.

The Cavalier boys remain undefeated in the county at 9-0 with the win and are 14-3 overall. Liberty is 2-7 in the county and 2-13 overall.

Neither team could pull away in the girls game and South Carroll tied the score at 44 on a foul shot by Makeba Ndifang with 51 seconds remaining in the game. Then it was Liberty’s turn on the charity stripe.

In the final 46 seconds Kelly McCormick, Kristen Cortese and Hailey Marlatt each toed the line to sink two fouls each for the final margin of victory.

"Foul shooting was our clutch there. You know, we work on that. We always do," said Liberty coach Jessica Morgan. 

"I run them in a couple drills and as soon as they get tired, we shoot foul shots because at the end of the game they are going to be tired. It hasn’t always worked early on in the season, but they came through. That was big at the end. It would have been a completely different game if we missed the foul shots," she said. 

McCormick led the Lions with 20 points. Marlatt also scored in double figures with 12. Also scoring for the victors was Cortese with six points and Christine Johnson, Sarah Johnston and Taylor Sprague each tallied four points each.

"They (Liberty) came ready to play. We have some learning to do. We will be back to practice tomorrow," said Cavalier coach Liz Padgett.

Ndifang led the Cavaliers with 15 points and Nicole Levy had 11 points while Stacie Maring had five, Kristine Tennyson and Nicole Heim each had four and Kimberly DeLonge and Margaret Payne each threw in three points.

In the boys contest, South Carroll jumped out to a 22-8 lead by the end of the first quarter. Cavalier coach Doug Goff went to the bench early and the underclassmen got a lot of playing time.

"We mixed it up there toward the end. I played a lot of the underclassmen together and I only have four seniors and I played them together with one of my younger guys," said South Carroll coach Doug Goff after the game. 

"I sent them in five in and five out to get a different mix," said South Carroll coach Doug Goff after the game. "You never know with injuries or foul trouble what kind of mix your going to have and then there is always when you have that nice lead, the underclassmen are going to play more together next year, so they can jell a little time together."

The Cavaliers were up 41-20 at halftime and both teams scored 16 points each in the thirs quarter. Liberty scored the first basket of the final quarter, but could only muster four more points in the quarter.

Junior Gavin McTavish topped the Cavaliers with 23 points and senior Ryan Tate tossed in 11 points with Tyler Alcid had eight points, Dan Mullen had seven, Logan Cook and John Quinn had five points each Carson Dugstad and Matthew Dee each had four and Ethan McBryde and Stephen Walker rounded out the scoring with two points each.

Chad Barcikowski led the Lions in scoring with 12 points coming off four-three pointers. JC Farley tossed in nine points while Shane Sweeney, Justin Murphy and Juwan Dorsey each had six points and Colin Orf had three points.