Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Parker Sutherland believes in karma or at least the sports version of karma.

Perhaps Sutherland and his City High teammates were due a little good fortune following a last second loss at Marion on Tuesday.

Rather than rely on karma Sutherand and the Little Hawks used hard work on the glass to make their own luck on Thursday.

City High outrebounded Liberty High by 21 and grabbed 23 offensive rebounds in a 59-53 win over the Lightning in a cross-town showdown in Iowa City.

“I believe in karma and we got some good karma tonight but we worked our butts off,” Sutherland said. “We worked our butts off and got a hard-fought win.”

Christopher Watkins had a game-high 22 points and 12 rebounds and Sutherland grabbed 17 boards as City High finished with a 49-28 edge on the glass.

Those rebounding edge turned into plenty of second chance points for City High (2-4) which snapped a four-game losing streak with its first win over Liberty High since January 4 of 2022.

“Coming into tonight we’d had a couple of tough losses to Muscatine and to Marion and we were looking for a bounce back win and we got it here against our rival,” Sutherland said. “It’s always good to get a win against a rival and this was a good team win.”

The 6-foot-5 Watkins scored 12 of his game-high 22 points in the fourth quarter as City High ended a string of five consecutive losses to the Lightning.

Watkins scored eight straight points for the Little Hawks in the fourth quarter as City High built a 50-43 lead it would never give up.

“We wanted to go inside,” Watkins said. “We were forcing some stuff that wasn’t there early but we were able to get the ball inside and it felt good to come out and do what I can do.”

Liberty High (0-3) led 17-11 after the first quarter and 28-23 at the half.

The Lightning matched their largest lead of the game at 40-30 on a Brady Randall bucket with 4:38 remaining in the third quarter.

That’s when City High went to work.

The Little Hawks closed the third quarter on an 8-0 run to close to within 40-38.

City High took its first lead of the game at 41-40 on a Davion Luckett 3-pointer just 34 seconds into the fourth quarter.

The Little Hawks never trailed again.

“We had some tough stretches offensively where we were turning it over too many times in a row,” Liberty High coach Ryan Kelley said. “That just kills you.”

City High held Liberty High scoreless for more than seven minutes during a 14-0 run that turned a 40-30 deficit into a 44-40 lead.

After shooting 23 percent and committing 13 first-half turnovers City High had just five turnovers and shot 46 percent from the floor in the final two quarters.

“That’s kind of been our season, turnovers and shot selection but I thought the second half shot selection was much better and that was the game,” City High coach Bill McTaggart said.

That and the rebounding.

City High had 13 of its 23 offensive rebounds in the second half as Watkins, Sutherland and Dom Salibi hammered the glass.

Salibi finished with 10 rebounds, including five on the offensive end.

“For us it was the rebounding,” Kelley said. “Watkins I think had over half his points on offensive rebounds. In the general half court they scored maybe a quarter of their points, everything was on second chance opportunities. We just have to be stronger on the boards.”

Liberty High cut the lead to one on a Jerimiah Washpun 3-pointer with 5:28 remaining and got within 54-53 on three Maddoc Coapstick free throws with 1:34 to play.

However, City High scored the final five points, all from the free throw line in the final 74 seconds to put the game away.

Luckett finished with 10 points while Salibi and Iyon Harris each had nine for City High.

“I’m seeing improvement and that’s big,” McTaggart said. “You want to be playing your best basketball in February, I’ve been doing this a long time, and that’s what we want to do and I’m seeing improvement.”

Washpun had 17 points and Coapstick and Randall each had 11 for the Lightning.

Liberty High             17  11  12  13  –  53

City High                   11  12  15  21  –  59

Liberty High (53) – Jerimiah Washpun 7-23 0-2 17, Maddoc Coapstick 3-10 5-5 11, Collin Decker 2-4 0-1 5, Brady Randall 4-6 0-0 11, Rylen Schweitzer 2-5 0-0 4, Keshawn Wyldon 1-5 0-0 3, Peyton Brooks 1-3 0-0 2, Totals 20-56 5-8 53.

City High (59) – Jack Lampe 0-4 0-0 0, Iyon Harris 2-6 4-4 9, Ja’Vion Robinson 0-3 1-2 1, Dom Salibi 3-8 3-6 9, Bernard Grant 1-3 0-0 2, Christopher Watkins 8-12 6-6 22, Davion Luckett 3-7 2-2 10, Parker Sutherland 2-11 2-5 6, Totals 19-54 18-25 59.

3-point field goals – Liberty High 8-29 (Washpun 3-10, Coapstick 0-4, Decker 1-2, Randall 3-5, Schweitzer 0-3, Wyldon 1-4, Brooks 0-1), City High (Harris 1-3, Robinson 0-1, Salibi 0-1, Luckett 2-4). Rebounds – Liberty High 28 (Washpun 6), City High 49 (Suterland 17). Total fouls – Liberty High 22, City High 9. Turnovers – Liberty High 19, City High 18. Fouled out – Liberty High (Coapstick). Technical fouls – City High (Bench).

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