Lancer basketball squad finds success in teamwork

Last season, the Liberty High School boys basketball team struggled, finishing toward the bottom of the Northeast A League.

What a difference a year makes.

This season the Lancers welcomed a new coach, Ryan Fitzgerald, and joined a new league, as Liberty made the move down to the B ranks in the Bi-County League.

Liberty has found the new league to its liking, sitting in third place in the 10-team standings. While the move down has helped, there is a bigger reason for the Lancers’ newfound success on the floor.

“I think we play more as a team than we did last year,” said sophomore guard Andrew Canning. “Last year, we had four seniors, and it was more like a one-man show most of the time.”

This season, coach Fitzgerald inherited a much younger squad but one that showed years beyond its experience.

“On one level, you look at it and say we have a lot of sophomores and juniors, and one senior, and for the most part we got two or three who played any varsity minutes last year,” Fitzgerald said.

“At this point of the season, though, they’re not sophomores or juniors anymore. To their credit, they don’t view themselves as that (young).

“They’ll never make a mistake and say, ‘I’m just a sophomore and this is my first varsity experience.’ If they don’t view themselves that way, then I tend not to.”

The Lancers have a balanced attack, led by leading scorers junior Andy Hodgson, and Canning. Liberty’s ability to share the wealth started before this season, though.

“We’ve all played together since third or fourth grade, so we pretty much know what each other is thinking and where we’re all going at the same time, so that helps out,” Canning said.

“You pretty much know where exactly everyone is going to be, so you know where to be on the floor at all times,” Hodgson said.

“Andrew and I played together in fifth grade, and we played up with Andy’s grade in AAU,” added sophomore forward T.J. Heiydt. “We’ve been playing together ever since, so we’ve known each other so long and played so much basketball together, it’s just like we know where each other is going to be.”

Some players stepping up into new roles this season have also bolstered the Lancers.

“The big surprises have been the play of our juniors Ty Anderson and Dan Templeton,” said Fitzgerald. “Templeton’s really come along. He’s our big man, and his offense as the season has gone along – he’s really helped us out, where in the past he was a defensive stopper and rebounder.”

“Our other sophomore who comes off the bench, Aaron Weis, from June until now – he’s a completely different player,” Fitzgerald said. “He was a short, little stocky guy who would post up hard.

“Now he’s grown and filled out. He’s hit a couple of game winners for us and brings 7 to 12 points a game when he comes in and has helped us out when we’ve got in foul trouble.

“He started off the year on JV the first two games, and now he’s full-time varsity and our first guy off the bench as a sophomore.”

“It hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be playing against bigger, quicker guys,” Weis said.

As playoff time approaches, the Lancers feel they have what it takes to make a run the state tournament the first week in March.

“Everybody on the team thinks we’ve got a pretty good shot at state,” Hodgson said. “I think we’re going to do well, so the whole team’s got their eye on state.”

“We’ve only had about three games that weren’t decided until the last minute of the game, so they’ve shown me that they’re not going to wilt,” Fitzgerald said.

“We’re not as talented as some other teams, or as experienced, or as big, but the one thing they’ve shown me that I’m really excited about is that they’re not going to back down.

“They’re just a bunch of tough kids that don’t know any better than to go out and lay it on the line each night.”