Westminster girls basketball shakes off early struggles to rally past Liberty, 49-42

Westminster found itself in a pretty deep hole against host Liberty in Friday night’s early-season county clash. But the Owls used their defense and some timely shooting to get back on track.

Westminster erased a 14-point deficit late in the second quarter to defeat the host Lions, 49-42.

Maddy Gassman’s 23 points led the win for the Owls The Owls (2-1, 1-1), while Gigi Hall led Liberty (1-4, 0-1) with 14.

“We’ve been going through some difficult times as a team, but we never stopped believing in ourselves,” Gassman said. “We were getting beat a lot early in man, so we switched to a 2-3 [zone defense] and that really did change the game for us. After that, we started to play better.”

Westminster scored the game’s first points on two Gassman free throws, but never led again until taking the lead for good with 1:36 left in the game.

Liberty, meanwhile, came out firing on all cylinders. The Lions led by only two, 15-13, after the first quarter, but went on a 12-0 run to start the second quarter and take command of the game. The 14-point deficit, the largest of the game, forced Westminster coach David Urban to call a time out with 3:16 left in the half.

Despite cutting the lead to 11, 29-18 at the halftime break, the Owls still looked out of the game in the third quarter. Westminster did manage to cut the lead to six, 31-25, on a Gassman foul shot with 3:47 left in the quarter, but they still trailed by nine, 34-25, at the end of the third quarter.

Then the Owls came to life.

Westminster used two 3-pointers by Gassman, a field goal basket by Julianna Lesher and a 3-point pay by Kaylen Battle to go on a 9-2 run and cut the Liberty lead to 38-36 with 4:19 left.

Liberty took four-point leads twice in the last two-and-a-half minutes, but Westminster cut the deficit to just one, 42-41, on another Battle 3-point play.

Gassman gave her team its first lead since the opening moments with a layup and the Owls never looked back.

“They finally calmed themselves down in the fourth quarter and the offense started to slow down for them,” Urban said. “Also, we didn’t hit shots the first three quarters, and the game of basketball is all about scoring. The shots finally started to fall.”

Liberty coach Barry Green, though not happy with the loss, tried to put the game in perspective.

“We had the looks, but the shots didn’t fall for us late in the game,” Green said. “I told them after the game, though, that this is Game 5 of a 20-scheduled game season. That’s 25% of the season, but I’ve gotten 99% of the effort from them. We just need to find the other 1%, and by the middle of the season we’ll be ok.”

Westminster 49, Liberty 42

WST – Gassman 23, Blubaugh 4, Lesher 10, Peach 3, Boag 3, Battle 6. Totals: 18 10-11 49.

LIB – Hall 15, Vaselaros 7, Golombeck 5, McKnight 10, Bald 6. Totals: 17 4-6 42. Half: L, 29-18.