Strong Second Half Leads Liberal Past Garden City

After trailing most of the first half, the Liberal Redskins led most of the second half on the way to a 52-46 win over the Garden City Buffaloes in the Big House Tuesday night.

Garden City, who beat Liberal three times last year including overtime in Liberal, jumped out to leads of 10-7 and 19-15.  The Skins rallied to tie the game at 22-22 at halftime.  The Redskins jumped out to a 29-23 lead in the second half.  The Redskins led 39-31 before the Buffaloes raced back to cut the LHS lead to 41-40.  Liberal led 43-40 with 3:10 to play and Alex Lopez banked in a right win 3 pointer to give the Redskins a 46-40 lead with 2:31 to play.  LHS led 47-40.  Garden made it 47-44 with 37.6 second left.

AJ Ramirez had a big night with 15 points while Lee Hatcher had 10.  Alex Lopez added eight.  The Angry Red made 46 percent of their shots and Garden made 41 percent.  The Buffaloes made 7-20 three pointers and LHS was 4-12.  LHS was 10-14 at the foul line and Garden City was 7-12.

It was Liberal’s first win at home against Garden City since 2012 snapping a seven game home losing streak to the Buffs.  It snaps a five game losing skid against GCHS.  The Redskins are 5-4 and 2-1 in the WAC.  Garden City is 4-4 and 0-2 in the WAC.  Liberal hosts Dodge City Friday night for homecoming.  The game tips at about 8 on 1270 and kscbnews.net.