After playing five of their past six games against ranked teams, the Liberal Redskins finally played an unranked team on Saturday at the Salina Invitational Tournament. The problem was, they played another good team who entered the tournament with a 7-3 record. In a nip and tuck game, the Concordia Panthers denied the Skins of their first chance of a win for the first time since December 11. Concordia won a nail biter 57-56.
The Panther jumped out to a 13-3 lead but Liberal rallied to trail 14-12 after one quarter. The Redskins led 20-19 and 27-26 but trailed 28-27 at halftime. Concordia’s biggest lead was eight at 38-30. The Redskins rallied to trail 42-37 after three. Isaiah Almeida’s barrage of 3’s helped the Redskins tie the game at 42-42. LHS again tied the game at 54-54. Liberal stole the ball with a chance to win the game with nine seconds left but a double dribble was called against LHS. Concordia got the ball with a chance to win it when controversial foul was was called against LHS as the Concordia player fell down. He made the free throw to the 57-56 lead. Liberal still had 3.8 seconds left and got a good look from three point range but missed it.
Isaiah Almeida had a breakout game with 20 points. Quintavious Williams continued to emerge and scored 13. Hunter Huskey had nine and Izzy Rotolo had seven. Liberal was just 6-14 at the foul line and Concordia out rebounded LHS.
The Redskins had won all five meetings against Concordia in the SIT. Liberal loses their seventh straight and is 2-9 while Concordia is 8-5. Liberal hosts Gruver Tuesday night at 7:45 on 1270, 92.3, and the KSCB and The Legend App.
