High School Basketball: Liberty Boys Drop Home Opener to Tuscarora

Visiting Tuscarora from Frederick County topped the Liberty boys in their basketball home opener Wednesday night 77-39.

The Titans put the game away in the first eight minutes of the game as they jumped out to a 28-8 lead. Tuscarora’s Lamal Washington scored the first 11 points of the game and had 14 total points in the first quarter.

Tuscarora was up 13-0 before Shane Sweeney got the home team on the scoreboard at the 5:02 mark.

"We dug a hole and just couldn’t get out of it. I told them it’s December, it’s a long season. We got nine new guys that didn’t play varsity before. It’s just a matter of getting our game together," said Liberty coach Jay Seaborg.

The visitors were up 48-20 at halftime. Liberty outscored the Titans 14-12 in the third quarter to trail 60-34 going in to the final eight minutes of play. The visitors hit for 17 points to only five for Liberty in the final quarter.

The Lions were led by Chad Barcikowski with 12 points and Sweeney had 11. Also scoring for Liberty was Tom Flaherty with six, Brandon Prechit threw out three, while Kyle Farson, Colin Orf and Bobby Wise had two points each and Justin Murphy had one.

Washington led the Titans with 26 points. Teammates Joseph Finley added 11 and James Magee 10 to also finish in double figures.

"They played hard. That’s part of it. Again, you start with the little things and then you build into the big things. We did some things pretty well. We gave up a lot of points early. We won the third quarter. We played well in the third quarter and then we kind of just lost it at the end," said Seaborg.

Tuscarora took the junior varsity match up 56-41. The Lions were led by Dick Hutchinson with 10 points, while Brandon Cavender had nine and Juwann Dorsey added seven.

Liberty travels to Frederick County Friday to take on Walkersville.