Liberty Bell’s Dusty Patterson, No. 20, launched a jump shot against Oroville last week as Shay Crandall positioned for a possible rebound.
The Liberty Bell High School boys’ basketball team ended its season with a strong showing against one of the league’s better teams, losing to Oroville 54-43 on the Mountain Lions’ home court on Feb. 5.
Discounting the second quarter, Liberty Bell played the Hornets evenly. But Oroville outscored the Mountain Lions by 11 points in the second frame, which was the final margin of victory.
Senior Simon Studen ended the first quarter with a three-pointer to keep Liberty Bell close at 18-14. But the Liberty Bell offense fell off during the second quarter and the Mountain Lions trailed 34-19 at the half.
In the final 16 minutes, Liberty Bell outscored the visitors, 24-20. Sophomore Nolan Falcon-George ended the third quarter with a trey that brought the Mountain Lions within 12, 42-30. Despite some hot shooting by junior Shay Crandall in his best game of the year, Liberty Bell couldn’t catch the Hornets, who finished tied with Brewster for first place in league play.
Studen led Liberty Bell’s scoring with 14 points, followed by Crandall with 13. Falcon-George had nine. For the season, the Mountain Lions’ scoring was led by sophomore Lucaas Gonzalez-Ortega with 177 points, followed by Studen with 129 and sophomore Dusty Patterson with 124.
Liberty Bell ended the season with a league record of 3-13 and was 4-16 overall — improvement over the previous two years in which the Mountain Lions did not win any games.
Studen and Owen Hevly were honored during Senior Night activities.
Oroville 54, Liberty Bell 43
Oroville 18 16 8 12 54
Liberty Bell 14 5 11 13 43
Simon Studen 14, Shay Crandall 13, Nolan Falcon-George 9, Dusty Patterson 5, Owen Hevly 2
Oroville JV 60, Liberty Bell JV 52
Sebastian Kar 19, Magnus Treise 8, Logan Hall 8, Marshall Budrow 7, Alex Whites 5, Dommanik Priest 3, David Kominak 2
Scoring through 20 games: Lucaas Gonzalez-Ortega 177, Simon Studen 129, Dusty Patterson 124, Nolan Falcon-George 115, Owen Hevly 100, Shay Crandall 47, Tyler Darwood 42, Deken Smith 27, Tommy Knox 20, Magnus Treise 4, Sebastian Kar 1
