Washington unable to avoid Lightning strikes

WASHINGTON - A 38-point win in the Washington High School boys basketball team's season opener Monday will not ease the sting of a 74-50 loss Tuesday.

The Iowa City Liberty Lightning struck early and often to run away with a victory in their season opener.

'The competition was different,” Washington head coach Collin stark said. 'That's the difference between a 3A and a 4A ballgame. I think we thought the same pressure and same athleticism would show up tonight as Monday. It's nothing against Centerville (which was Monday's win), but if you want to be a good to great team, you have to be able to play against teams that are physical and have same or better athleticism as you. It came down to the little things and they did the little things much better than we did.”

The Lightning did everything better in building a 12-3 and 16-4 lead. Stark called time to stem the tide, but the wave kept coming.

'Once they went on that run, it was a challenge for us to stay in it mentally,” Stark said. 'That is how I challenged them. When you keep competing it means you don't make an issue of a call. If we make a mistake we have to bust our butts and get back to the other end and make up for that mistake.”

Liberty led 29-10 at the end of the first quarter.

'That early lead was very important for us because it helped set a tone,” Liberty head coach Stu Ordman said. 'We were fortunate our shots went in and some of theirs did not. I really liked our mind-set to start the game.”

With 5 minutes, 24 seconds left in the first half, Washington's Brock Sobaski was called for his fourth foul. Liberty had just four team fouls at that point.

'It's all about how you respond,” Stark said. 'It challenged us. We have to stay together as a team and sometimes we didn't.”

The Demons played better in the second quarter and were outscored just 14-13 for a 43-23 halftime score.

'I liked our defense for the first quarter and a half, but I was not happy with the last part of the second quarter,” Ordman said. 'I thought we came out in the second half and played better defense.”

The Liberty offense was working, too. When Ira Hazeltine sank his sixth trey of the game with 4 minutes left in the third quarter, he had 21 points and the Demons had 27.

Luke Turner led the Demons with 11 points and Kasen Bailey added 10.

'Are we staying together or are we pointing fingers,” Stark said. 'There were times when we were going the right direction and there were times when we reverted back to that pointing of the fingers. That is the challenge of high school basketball. This was a good test in the grand scheme of things. This will help prepare us for the conference. I think this will be one of the better teams we play this year and we have to learn from it.”