Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

NORTH LIBERTY – New year, new look and more importantly, new result for Liberty High.

After a 1-5 start to the season Liberty High came out running in 2025.

A focus on tempo and playing fast played dividends on Friday as Liberty High returned from the holiday break with a 78-55 win over Cedar Rapids Jefferson (1-6) in a Mississippi Valley Conference cross-divisional contest in North Liberty.

“One of things that we’ve tried to focus on is just getting better each day one thing at a time,” Liberty High coach Ryan Kelly said. “We were not a very good basketball team before winter break. I don’t think we are that great of a basketball team right now but we’ve definitely improved and if we move and run like that and knock down shots we can play with a lot of teams.”

Liberty High (2-6) matched its season high for shot attempts with 65 and knocked down 12 3-pointers on Friday while shooting 46 percent from the field.

The Lightning pushed pace and got big games from its backcourt of Jerimiah Washpun and Maddoc Coapstick while winning for the second time in three games.

Washpun had a game-high 29 points and Coapstick added 17, both hit three 3-pointers in the win.

“We feel like we have to run in transition and trying to score in transition and that’s what we worked on a lot over break was pushing the ball and running,” Washpun said. “That was big for Collin Decker had a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds as Liberty High finished with a 41-27 rebounding edge that included 15 offensive rebounds.

The emphasis on going faster came after the Lightning were beaten on the boards in three of their five December losses.

Playing fast on Friday produced perhaps the best offensive performance of the season for Liberty.

“With our size disadvantage we’ve been getting hurt on the boards we one of things that we wanted to do is play faster,” Kelley said. “Over break we really worked on our spacing and running the floor. Our shooting percentage was definitely much better tonight but that’s because we were sharing the ball and shooting in rhythm shots.”

Washpun had 14 of his game-high 29 points in the first quarter as Liberty High took an early 19-15 lead.

The Lightning pushed the margin to 38-21 with a 17-2 run in the second quarter that featured seven points from Washpun.

“This was really big, coming out of break after a 1-5 start this win is really big for us,” Washpun said. “Coming into the new year we feel like we can be a better team, we changed up a few things and I feel like we were better tonight.”

Liberty High led 41-28 at the half.

Cedar Rapids Jefferson cut the lead to 10 with 3:33 remaining in the third quarter before the Lightning closed the quarter on a 9-2 run spurred by a Decker 3-pointer.

“We were looking at this game really to get us some momentum,” Decker said. “We wanted to get a win and we have a quick turnaround tomorrow and hopefully we can get some real momentum going.”

Liberty High will face Bettendorf on Saturday at 10 a.m. as part of the ServPro Crossover Challenge at the Alliant Energy Powerhouse in Cedar Rapids.

“I think if we really dial down we have enough guys that we can rotate in and out that we can compete with people,” Kelley said. “We are going to struggle with our size disadvantage and that’s why we need to get out and run and try to take advantage in transition.”

Ian Eirp hit five 3-pointers and had 18 points and eight rebounds for Cedar Rapids Jefferson while Dayten Guy had 15 points for the J-Hawks.

CR Jefferson             15  13  13  14  –  55   

Liberty High              19  22  17  20  –  78

CR Jefferson (55) – Eric Smith 2-10 0-0 4, Dayten Guy 7-12 1-3 15, Ty Kuennen 1-4 0-0 3, Antonis Christodoulou 0-2 0-0 0, Zach Thielman 2-7 0-0 5, Ian Eirp 6-10 1-2 18, Jonah Diekman 2-5 2-2 6, Jordan Wilcox 0-0 2-2 2, Keon Lewis 1-2 0-0 2, Totals 21-52 6-9 55.

Liberty High (78) – Asher Kahn 0-0 2-4 2, Jerimiah Washpun 11-17 4-5 29, Maddoc Coapstick 7-16 0-0 17, Collin Decker 5-11 0-0 12, Brady Randall 2-6 0-0 5, Cale Baldwin 1-2 0-0 2, Rylen Schweitzer 1-3 0-0 3, Keshawn Wyldon 1-1 0-0 2, Will Trettin 0-1 0-0 0, Chase Goodheart 1-6 0-0 3, Jamarion Baker 0-1 0-0 0, Quayshon Harrington-Johnson 1-1 0-0 3, Totals 30-65 6-9 78.

3-point field goals – CR Jefferson 7-23 (Smith 0-1, Guy 0-4, Kuennen 1-4, Christodoulou 0-2, Thielman 1-4, Eirp 5-7, Lewis 0-1), Liberty High 12-32 (Washpun 3-5, Coapstick 3-6, Decker 2-5, Randall 1-5, Baldwin 0-1, Schweitzer 1-3, Goodheart 1-5, Johnson 1-1). Rebounds – CR Jefferson 27 (Eirp 8), Liberty High 41 (Decker 10). Total fouls – CR Jefferson 12, Liberty High 9. Turnovers – CR Jefferson 16, Liberty High 11. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.

Did you enjoy this subscription free article? Help keep Your Prep Sports free by donating.