Liberty keeps rolling with big victory over San Jacinto

Liberty basketball coach Andrew Ellis talks to his players during a timeout Friday night. (Staff photo)

By Doug Spoon, Editor

Liberty High used a trapping defense to set up an offense highlighted by sophomore guard Jaden Ortega’s outside shooting Friday night in easily beating San Jacinto, 91-50, in a Mountain Pass League boys basketball game.

The aggressive full-court press forced numerous San Jacinto turnovers and fueled a fast-break Liberty offense that built a 41-27 lead at halftime. The Bison came out even more energetic in the second half, putting the game away with a series of scoring spurts and continued solid defense.

As a result, the Bison are now 13-2 overall this season and 4-0 in league play. They have beaten their league opponents by an average of 34 points.

"With the twins (forwards Jalen and Isaiah Tiggett) up front, we have length, and we have a couple speedy guards, so we tried to speed the game up a little bit,” said Bison coach Andrew Ellis. “We tried the trapping defense in a full-court setting and the twins are so good at getting back and recovering if we do get beat.

“That scrambling, chaotic defense fits our style. When we do it the way we’re supposed to – which we did in spurts tonight – it can really cause problems.”

Liberty led 10-5 early on before Ortega hit back to back 3-point shots and Ivan Tiggett scored on a driving layup for an 18-5 advantage. Ortega – who had a game-high 34 points – closed out the quarter with his fourth 3-pointer to give the Bison a 22-7 lead after the first quarter.

With the Tiggett twins dominating under the basket and the trapping defense continuing to work, Liberty opened up a 34-20 lead in the second quarter. San Jacinto scored the next five points, but the Bison closed out the half with a 7-2 scoring spurt, including another 3-pointer by Ortega.

The second half featured even more dominating play by the home team. Junior guard Manny Nazario finished with 14 points and Rene Delgado had 11, while the Tiggetts dominated the boards.

"This is a normal game for Jaden, honestly,” Ellis said about Ortega. “He’s had a couple huge games where he’s just lights out. He can really shoot the ball. It’s a testament also to his teammates, who did a really good job of finding him. There were only a few times he actually created shots himself. The majority of time it’s his teammates finding him, and that kind of teamwork is the stuff we love.”

That includes the type of defense the team showed again Friday night.

“Early in the year it worked pretty well,” Ellis said about the full-court pressure. “In the first and second quarter when teams are still making adjustments, we do pretty well with that. It’s a lot of effort on the kids’ part. If they play the way they’re supposed to, we can be really good.”

As well as things are going, Ellis would like to see even more consistency as the team works its way through the league schedule.

“I would love to put all 32 minutes together,” the coach said. “The last four games we’ve really struggled to play a full 32. We play some good, solid spurts. I don’t think our first half tonight was that great, but you could see that in the third quarter they came out with a lot more energy.

“We’re just trying to get ready for playoff basketball. We talk about moving up the mountain to get ready for the playoffs; we just have to continue our ascent up.”