Red-hot Freedom boys basketball burns Easton’s D-11 playoff hopes – lehighvalleylive.com

Freedom High Schools boys basketball team is on fire at the moment.

And the Patriots scorched Eastons postseason aspirations on Wednesday night.

Freedom scored the games first 16 points and came away with a 54-39 Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Steel Division victory over the Red Rovers at Easton Area Middle School.

Its the fifth straight victory for the Patriots (12-10 overall, 8-8 EPC), who clinched a spot in the District 11 tournament with a win over Pleasant Valley on Monday, but were denied the last spot in the league postseason when East Stroudsburg North defeated Stroudsburg on Wednesday night.

Easton (10-12, 6-10) ends the season on a four-game slide and falls one win short of automatically qualifying for the district playoffs.

We came out with a lot of confidence, Freedom coach Joe Stellato said. Weve just been playing that kind of basketball the last four-five games, so we carried it over into this game.

Patriots senior Tyler Muniz hit a trio of 3-pointers out of the gate to get his team rolling. Classmate Justin Benton drained another long ball to stretch the visitors advantage to 16-0 with 1:26 left in the first quarter.

We were just moving the ball, executing the game plan and doing what we were told, Muniz said. Whenever you can hit early shots, itll just give you confidence no matter what It was a road game big crowd we had to get it going.

Freedom guard Nick King, another senior, knocked down an off-balance 3 at the first-quarter buzzer to make the score 19-2 after one.

To Freedoms credit, they came out on fire, hitting shots against our zone and getting us out of our zone, Red Rovers coach Ben Childs said. We couldnt score. I dont know if we got wrapped up in senior night; I dont know if we werent focused and ready to play There were a lot of emotions. We had five seniors on the floor. I was hoping they would use that as fuel and come out on fire. Obviously, the opposite happened.

The Patriots took a 30-17 lead into halftime.

It was their senior night, so we wanted to come out with energy, said Freedom senior Lewis Hargett, who had 12 points.

Red Rovers guard Arnel Lewis cut the Patriots advantage to 37-30 on a layup with 20 seconds remaining in the third quarter. Freedom, however, went on an eight-point run that ended with a drive and bucket from Muniz to press the score out to 45-30.

Im proud of the guys effort, Childs said. Freedom just had a little bit too much tonight.

Easton, which shot 8-for-17 from the foul line, rallied within 47-38 on a Ben Nimeh putback with 3:30 remaining. Thats as close as the Rovers came, though, as the Patriots took care of the ball and converted from the charity stripe in the closing minutes.

We just had to weather the storm, Stellato said of Eastons runs. Rebounding was the key. They werent hitting their shots, but we needed to continue to rebound. If we were going to give them second and third shots, then we were going to be in trouble We did the right things at the end. Thats what I expect from seniors.

Wednesday marked the end of the line for Eastons starters: Lewis, Nimeh, Logan Koch, Connor Fahie and Mohamed Dumbuya and fellow seniors Chaquor Manley and Sean Boylan.

Its a special group because we took over the program four years ago when these guys were freshmen, Childs said. This coaching staff has been lucky enough to see them mature as ninth-graders all the way up to seniors Its going to be weird without these guys next year Theyre a hard-working group and theyre going to be missed.

Lewis finished with a team-high 14 points and Nimeh contributed 11 for the Rovers. Muniz tallied 15 points for Freedom and King notched 14.

The Patriots, who lost seven in a row before their recent winning streak, hope to continue their momentum when districts arrive.

Were clicking at the right time, Muniz said.

I think were playing great, Hargett said. Were on a five-game winning streak and were just keeping it rolling.

Kyle Craig may be reached atkcraig@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter@KyleCraigSports. Find Lehigh Valley high school sports on Facebook.

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Red-hot Freedom boys basketball burns Easton's D-11 playoff hopes - lehighvalleylive.com