BEALETON — A bugle’s wail echoed through the Liberty High School gym Thursday, the Bealeton crowd responded with screams of charge and the Eagles’ girls basketball team pulled away in the second half against the visiting Wakefield Fighting Owls.
The defending Group-AA, Division 4 state champions led the Owls by just one point at halftime, but the Eagles exploded with 26 points in the third quarter and Liberty stretched its winning streak to 16 games with a 46-31 victory.
“I’d like to say it was my halftime speech,” Liberty head coach Lauren Milburn said with a chuckle, “but I don’t even know if I have that much pull.”
“We picked up the intensity [in the second half] and we let our defense create some offense for us,” Milburn continued. “We haven’t really had to run an offense in a while, so for a while tonight we forgot how to run an offense.”
The Eagles (16-1 overall, 5-0 Evergreen) figured it out in the third quarter, as Liz Wood turned three of her four steals into points in the frame, and she and 6-foot-4 center Bri Croushorn routinely found each other on backdoor cuts.
“Sometimes your senior leaders just have to put the team on their shoulders,” Milburn said. “I thought Bri had a great game. She came out looking a little more ready to play than everyone else.”
Croushorn, a senior, finished with 16 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks, while Wood, also a senior, scored 12 of her 17 points in the second half and added seven assists and four rebounds.
“We knew it wouldn’t be long before they started playing two-man basketball, but I thought we would do a better job against it,” said Wakefield head coach Paul Sipes, who watched his team go into halftime trailing just 14-13.
“We just played good, fundamental defense [in the first half],” Sipes continued. “It took them [the Eagles] a little while to figure out what we were doing and where we were switching.”
The Owls (16-5) finished the first quarter with a 9-8 lead and hung with the Eagles for the first half thanks in large part to defending Delaney Conference Player of the Year Emily Granruth.
“She can score, and that’s what she brings to the table,” said Sipes, who added Granruth has about 1,300 career points to her credit. “She alters shots on defense, and we’re glad to have her for one more year.”
Granruth brought the Owls within two points in the first quarter with a jumper, and kept the Eagles off the scoreboard with a blocked shot. She cut Liberty’s halftime lead to one with a pair of free throws and even drained a 3-pointer in the fourth quarter.
The junior led Wakefield with 17 points, nine rebounds, four steals and two blocks.
Liberty is back in action tonight at home, as Evergreen District foe Brentsville comes to town.
Liberty 46, Wakefield 31
WHS 9 4 7 11 — 31
LHS 8 6 26 6 — 46
Scoring summary
Wakefield (16-5) — Emily Granruth 17, Ariel Jenkins 5, Alexis Smith 4, Kelly Mason 3, Nicole Greeden 2.
Liberty (16-1, 5-0) — Liz Wood 17, Bri Croushorn 16, Aubri Crummett 6, Aseanti Jones 4, Dru Martin 2, Erin Morant 1.
Team totals
Rebounds — Wakefield 17, Liberty 24.
Free throws — Wakefield 10-16. Liberty 6-14.
3-pointers — Wakefield 1 (Granruth). Liberty 0
Turnovers — Wakefield 18, Liberty 17.
CENTRAL VIRGINIA PREPS
Liberty-Bealeton’s Liz Wood earned a college scholarship after helping lead the Eagles to a state championship last season, but the senior said even she couldn’t have predicted her final high school season would go so well.
From posting eye-popping stats and earning a spot on ESPN to cementing her place in Liberty athletics history, Wood has done it all this year.
Get the whole story on the Star-Exponent’s new high school sports blog Central Virginia Preps at centralvapreps.wordpress.com.
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