No. 1 Liberty squeaks past Centennial in boys basketball — PHOTOS
With Liberty’s boys basketball team trailing by a point in the final 30 seconds Tuesday night, the Patriots got the ball to Kaeden Castillero from the top of the key.
And even though the senior sharpshooter couldn’t knock down the jumper, he didn’t give up on the play and found another way to help the top-ranked Patriots pull out a win.
Castillero chased down the rebound and was fouled, knocking down a pair of free throws with 19.9 seconds left to lift Liberty to a 69-68 home win over Centennial.
“I know my shots,” Castillero said. “If I feel it’s short, I’m going to go rebound it. Good thing I got it back, got fouled and made the free throws.”
The Bulldogs had a final chance, but Liberty (10-1, 1-0 Class 5A Southern League) turned up the pressure defensively. The Patriots double-teamed RJ Nance on the wing, and his desperation push shot around the two defenders went off the front of the rim with time winding down. Nance got the rebound, but was unable to get a second shot off before the buzzer.
“We knew who they were going to try to get the ball to,” Liberty coach Kevin Soares said. “Jaden (Riley) did a good job of denying him for as long as he could. And then when they did hand it off, we just kind of jumped that handoff.”
The game featured four ties and four lead changes in the fourth quarter. Centennial took its final lead when Jaxon Price hit 1 of 2 free throws with 37.9 seconds to go to make it 68-67.
But the free throw he missed turned out to be costly, and continued a trend of poor foul shooting for the Bulldogs down the stretch. Centennial was 2-for-7 from the line in the final 1:39 of the game and was just 3-for-9 from the line in the fourth quarter. Liberty made 7 of 8 fourth-quarter free throws.
“It’s kind of unbelievable, because we’ve been missing free throws,” Soares said. “So I’m happy we made them tonight. We needed every last one of them to get it done.”
Castillero hit five 3-pointers and scored 19 points to lead Liberty. Tyler Bright, a 6-foot-9-inch sophomore, added 13 points, 10 rebounds and two blocked shots. He scored six points in the fourth quarter as Liberty’s ballhandlers looked to drive and dish to him.
“Tyler’s a very skilled big man,” Soares said. “It makes no sense not using him. We’ve got to keep him happy. Because if we give him the ball on offense, he’ll play a little bit harder on defense and rebound for us.”
Riley added 13 points and five rebounds for the Patriots.
Nance led Centennial with 17 points and seven rebounds, and teammate Bryce Iwuoha had 12 points and 10 rebounds.
“It was a tough game,” Castillero said. “We got to an early lead in the beginning, but just made it tough for ourselves. I’m proud of just finishing it off and pushing through the adversity.”
