Liberty continues rewriting history
Bit by bit, first-year Olentangy Liberty girls basketball coach Sam Krafty is compiling records and statistics so players past, present and future can get a grasp on their team’s history.
Krafty has been underwhelmed by what he has seen.
“The school is 15 years old, and the most games they won were 15 in the first season and 15 in 2012-13,” he said. “The won-lost record was 100-129 before this season. That’s not too good.”
But these Patriots continued to make everyone forget about the bad old days last night by building a two-game lead in the Ohio Capital Conference Central Division with a 41-36 victory at Dublin Coffman.
Liberty (13-0, 7-0) got five points, 10 rebounds and five blocked shots from 6-foot-3 Miami University recruit Kristen Levering, 12 points from point guard Alexa Fisher and seven points from Katie Harrop. What has made the start to the season most impressive is that Liberty has not played a home game since Dec. 19.
Fisher said the players don’t pay much attention to the Patriots being ranked second in the Division I state poll.
“We were first in soccer, and it meant nothing because we didn’t go as far as we expected,” she said. “This is one step at a time. It has been a cool year. We were prepared for this game tonight. We were determined. A lot of people say we have an easy schedule. This was a game where we proved we could play.”
Coffman (10-3, 5-2) is without 6-1 senior center Sade Olatoye — she is expected to practice with full contact on Friday in coming back from knee reconstruction surgery — but the team has a handful of players back from the squad that went to the state tournament last season.
The Patriots led by 15 points three times in the third quarter, but the Shamrocks shaved the deficit to 36-30 with 2:03 left in the game. Liberty converted 7 of 8 free throws to lead 41-34 with 49.7 seconds left. Levering had a big block in that stretch.
“We were on our heels in the first half,” Coffman coach Bryan Patton said. “We went through such long stretches where we didn’t score the basketball and gave them two, three and four looks at the basket. You can’t come out passive.”
Krafty’s girls had a lot to do with that, with superb movement without the ball, crisp passing and tight defense.
Levering has been overwhelmed by the success of this team.
“I can’t explain how good I feel right now,” she said. “We have great chemistry. We trust in each other. I’ve never had this much fun playing. We’re always trying to show what we’re made of. We have a mission statement, and that is to be accountable and to be tougher and smarter than our opponents.”
Krafty is a first-time head coach. He was an assistant on the Liberty boys team the previous two seasons and an assistant for two seasons for the girls before that.
“I don’t have much of a résumé,” he said, smiling. “I don’t know how I got on this journey, but I like it. I just want the kids to have a good experience. It’s a mutual thing with us — I have confidence in them, and they have confidence in me. We’ve had one bad practice out of 43. That was practice No. 16, and they knew it wasn’t good.”