Herd Spoil Liberal’s Party

This is supposed to be a football school from Texas playing a team from basketball crazed Kansas in Kansas. An LHS team which has finished with a winning record in each of the past four seasons. It was supposed to be the 50th win for young LHS head coach Drew Gruver in just his fourth year as head coach. But somebody forgot to tell the boys from Hereford. The Herd, which went 10-3 in football and advanced to the third round of the 4A playoffs got an “and one” with 4.9 seconds left to beat Liberal 53-50 in the Big House Friday night. Liberal had the ball with 43 seconds left in a tie game but missed a layup with 25 second left to give the Herd (3-6) the chance to take the last shot.

Liberal was ice cold offensively to begin the game trailing early 10-5 and 12-7 before coming back to lead 14-12 at halftime. Liberal led by as many as seven (28-21) in the third quarter. Hereford’s Zack Lopez, who averaged two points a game, made five three pointers and scored 19. Liberal falls to 2-1 and faces 3-0 Lawton at about 6:45 Saturday evening on Talkradio 1270 and kscbnews.net. Lawton Garden City 57-46 Friday afternoon in the Big House and the class 6A Oklahoma Wolverines topped Hereford 65-38 last week in Canyon.