Staff photo / Neel Madhavan
Liberty’s Demi Watson, goes up for a layup Wednesday night while being pressured by multiple Waterloo defenders. Watson scored 23 points in Liberty’s 62-33 district semifinal win.
STRUTHERS — Even when it secured its first league title in 11 years earlier this season, Liberty wasn’t satisfied. It had bigger goals in mind.
Now, the Leopards are one win away from achieving their season-long goal after defeating Waterloo 62-33 Wednesday night to advance to the Struthers District final
“Right now, we just have to focus,” Leopards head coach Deidre Watson said. “Our mindset has been one team at a time. We’re going to scout, watch film and practice hard and hopefully we’ll come away with that victory.”
From the start, Liberty’s defense smothered the Vikings.
The Leopards were content to pack it in the paint and force Waterloo to settle for jumpers. Spending most of the first half in a zone, Liberty let the Vikings come to them. Whenever Waterloo would try to get into the paint, several Liberty hands and arms were waiting to strip or swat the ball away or force a tie-up.
“We knew typically their shots are on the inside, so we wanted to jam that up as much as possible,” Watson said. “If they were going to beat us, they had to beat us from the three-point line.”
Overall, Liberty held the Vikings to 22.2 percent shooting from the floor. Waterloo took a whopping 34 three-point shots, compared to just 20 shots inside the three-point arc.
Waterloo tried to get its points from outside, but struggled to hit from deep. Some of the threes started to fall in the second half, but by then, it was too late.
Offensively, Liberty’s backcourt of sophomore Aaliyah Foster and junior Demi Watson controlled the game. As a team, the Leopards shot a blistering 66.7 percent.
Foster and Watson each scored 23 points, with Demi’s mostly coming from outside, while Foster got her points in the paint.
“Cianna (Smith) had kind of gone off in the last couple games, so I told them that (Wednesday) it would probably be a Demi and Aaliyah show,” Deidre said. “I’ve always said it’s a three-headed monster and whatever (the other team) focuses on, the other ones are going to go off. Cianna’s had two excellent games, where the other two were kind of quiet, so (Waterloo) focused on Cianna and it worked out for Demi and Aaliyah.”
Liberty’s opponent in Saturday’s district final is a familiar foe. The Leopards split their first two meetings of the season with conference rival Brookfield — winning the first meeting at home in December by two, and dropping the return visit by seven on Jan. 20. The loss is Liberty’s only one of the season. Brookfield defeated Ursuline 57-41 in the second game of the Struthers District semifinals to set up the deciding third game.
Tip off is set for 7 p.m. Saturday at Struthers High School.
