Susan Harman

Your Prep Sports

NORTH LIBERTY – Liberty High did something Tuesday night that no Liberty High girls basketball team has ever done.

The Bolts earned their way to the girls state basketball tournament with a resounding 72-55 victory over City High in a 5A regional final at a raucous Liberty High gym.

“This is amazing; this has been our goal all season,” junior Natalie Ramsey said. “All of our hard work paid off. I’m just so proud of everybody. It was so fun to be out there.”

“It means everything,” Liberty High coach Jaime Brandt said. “From where we started and to see these seniors stick with it all the way through, I’m just so happy for these girls.”

Analyst types might point to the third quarter when the Bolts outscored the Little Hawks 18-4 to take the game by the throat with a 56-38 lead.

But Little Hawks coach Lynsey Barnard had a simpler explanation.

“The only headline should be that Natalie Ramsey is a phenomenal player,” Barnard said. “I don’t know if there’s anything they could have done different or we could have done different. She was going to win that game for them, and she’s capable of doing that, and she’s a heck of a player.

“They played so well, and all of the credit goes to them.”

Ramsey, a 6-foot junior, scored 40 points from all over the court, and City High couldn’t stop her.

“When you come down every time and a kid hits a contested mid-range jumper, that’s hard,” Barnard said. “I just think she took the air out of it for them.”

Ramsey made all five of her 3-point attempts and was 14-of-24 overall.

She made 7-of-8 free throws.

Another key for Liberty was the 3-point shooting of senior Madeline Casey.

She missed her first three 3-point attempts but was hitting bullseyes thereafter.

She hit three 3-pointers in a row to finish the second quarter and give the Bolts a 38-34 lead at halftime.

Casey finished 5-of-11 beyond the arc.

“My coaches just always tell me to keep shooting,” Casey said. “They have confidence in me, and that really helps me.”

“It helps so much,” Ramsey said of her teammate. “She’s a great shooter. Having someone out there who can knock down the three anytime, anywhere is great.”

As if Ramsey’s production wasn’t enough, the third quarter really finished the Little Hawks.

City High made hay in the first half with an aggressive inside game.

Sophomore Kaitlin Loria was particularly effective, scoring 15 points in the paint.

Loria was nearly always where the ball was, and she finished plays.

A game that was nearly even through two quarters ceased to be in the third.

Liberty High scored the first eight points (two Ramsey 3-pointers and a Casey baseline drive) before City’s Augie Palmer managed to stick a rebound back in.

In the quarter City was 1-for-10 from the field with seven turnovers.

Its dominance in paint was a thing of the past.

“We ended the second quarter on a strong note, and we needed to keep our energy up instead of starting off slow,” Casey said. “We hit a couple shots and went from there.”

“I think we just got hot,” Brandt said. “I think we got our jitters out the first half and played extremely well offensively and defensively in that third quarter.”

“Everyone was hitting their shots, and we played good defense,” Ramsey said. “I thought we moved really well. We kind of pulled everything together that we’ve been working on all season.”

The Bolts mixed up their defenses after halftime and used some zone that seemed to neutralize City’s inside game.

“We came out in the zone and tried to surprise them a little bit,” Brandt said. “And we were getting hurt the inside a lot (in the first half), so we switched to the zone. We tried to make them beat us from the perimeter. That worked pretty well.”

“It takes us a couple possessions to get settled in,” Barnard said. “And with them switching things back and forth we never really got into rhythm, and that made things pretty difficult for us.”

Liberty High improved to 17-6 as it heads to state to play unbeaten and top-ranked Johnston (23-0) in Monday’s quarterfinal at 10 a.m. in Des Moines.

City High finished 16-8.

Regional finals are always emotional.

A big crowd made plenty of noise and the stakes are high. After the game while Liberty’s players and their families celebrated, Palmer was distraught on the bench and was comforted by coaches.

An emotional Barnard gave tribute to her team.

“In a 3-1/2 to four-month season when you’re with each other every day you usually get to the point at the end of the year where you’re kind of ready to get it done,” she said. “That never happened with this group. I loved showing up for practice every day. I feel like over the last three years we’ve kind of all grown up together. I’m super proud of them.”

City High              19  15   4   17  –  55

Liberty High      16  22  18  16  –  72

City High (55) – Augie Palmer 6-23 3-4 18, Hattie Galloway 2-3 1-1 5, Kaitlin Loria 8-9 2-4 18, Emmy McComas 0-5 2-2 2, Tessa Driscoll 3-7 1-2 9, Maybes Miller 1-4 0-0 2, Eve Vitense 0-1 0-0 0, Maeve Obermueller 1-1 0-0 2. Totals 21-53 9-13.

Liberty High (72) –  Ava Casey 2-9 0-0 5, Janessa Mosley 2-5 0-0 5, Kennedy Goodheart 0-1 0-0 0, Natalie Ramsey 14-24 7-8 40, Madeline Casey 7-13 0-0 17, Madilyn Meyer 1-1 0-0 3, Natalie Schechinger  1-1 0-0 2. Totals 27-54 7-8.

3-point goals – City High 5-17 (Palmer 3-11, Driscoll 2-3, Miller 0-3); Liberty 13-26 (Ava Casey 1-5, Mosley 1-3, Goodheart 0-1, Ramsey 5-5, M. Casey 5-11, Meyer 1-1).

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