Brunswick handed Liberty a pair of lopsided losses Friday night in non-region contests. The Lady Pirates outlasted Liberty, 58-42, in the girls game. Brunswick shelled the Panthers, 64-37, in the night cap.

Lady Panthers
Missed free throws and turnovers cost the Liberty County Lady Panthers in a 58-42 loss against Brunswick Friday night.
Liberty was a meager 10-22 from the charity stripe and gave up 14 points in the second half against Brunswick’s full court press.
“You can’t play the way we did Friday night and expect to win,” Liberty head coach Carolyn Kelly said. “We missed too many free throws and just threw up shots instead of getting the ball into the post.”
One of the few bright spots for the Lady Panthers was the post play of Latia Fleming. She was Liberty’s leading scorer with 16 points.
“Latia has been doing a great job all season for us,” Kelly said. “Tonight she really had to create her own offense of put-backs and taking the ball in. We did not do a good job of getting the ball into the post and taking high percentage shots.”
Kelly is confident her team will come around though. Tuesday night Liberty defeated rival Richmond Hill after losing in double digits a week before.
“Brunswick is a non-region game so that doesn’t hurt our record. We are getting better but we have to be more consistent before we enter region play. Sometimes I really don’t know what team will show up and tonight we didn’t show up the way we needed too,” Kelly said.
Liberty dropped to 4-3. The Lady Panthers travel to Burke County Saturday night.

Brunswick 58, Liberty 42

Brunswick        18    10    13    17 — 58    
Liberty        9    14    7    12 — 42

Brunswick — D. Alston 24, J. Garner 13, N. Evans 12, K. Nixon 6, H. Rowell 2

Liberty — Latia Fleming 16, Emoni Fisher 10, Brianna Reece 8, Oliva Legette 3, Jalyen James 3, Bryonna Graham 2.

Panthers
Brunswick jumped out to an early 5-0 lead, but the Panthers responded. Creating deflections off of Pirate passes and quick offensive moves allowed Liberty to stay ahead until the end of the first quarter.
Both teams matched each other basket-for-basket until the final three minutes of the half when Brunswick went on an 8-point, unanswered scoring run and built a 10 point lead going into halftime. Liberty would continue to trail the rest of the game.
“Right now we are just not very good,” Panther head coach Willie Graham said. “We show some signs of life and seem like we are getting better. We didn’t handle the defensive pressure that Brunswick put on us very well.”
Liberty rallied for a win against Richmond Hill Tuesday night, but Graham said it was a different type of basketball team they played.
“Richmond Hill didn’t put a lot of defensive pressure on us and we were able to move the ball more and have more scoring opportunities,” Graham said. “We probably only had 8 turnovers against them and tonight we were back up to our usual 20 turnovers a game.”
The Panthers’ Michael Farrior led all scorers with 13 points. Milik Wallace finished with 8 points and Freddie McSwain put in 6 points.
Liberty drops to 1-6 on the season. The Panthers travel to Burke County Saturday. Read all about that game and the weekend’s basketball round up in the Coastal Courier sports section Wednesday.

Brunswick 64, Liberty 37

Brunswick        9    21    12    22 — 64    
Liberty        11    9    8    9 — 37

Brunswick — Jones 11, Walker 9, Jackson 7, Kelly 7, Davis 6, Hamilton 6, M. Davis 5, Brown 4, Hillery 4, King 3, Herman 2.
Liberty — Michael Farrior 13, Milik Wallace 8, Freddie McSwain 6, Daylan Bryant 4, Jeramiah Bacon 3, Xavier Tunstall 3.