Liberty Christian is looking to build on a strong end to last season’s campaign, with all but one starter returning this season. 

After starting last season 2-14 under first year coach Butch Clark, the Eagles went 7-7 down the stretch to finish the season with nine wins, including a four game winning streak. 

“They learned a real valuable lesson,” Clark said. “They could have quit when they were 2-14 because they had all the teams coming back that had drubbed them the first time… So I think they learned some valuable lessons if you keep working, you keep applying yourself, sometimes life isn’t easy and you got to fight through it. The kids that were on the team last year, experienced that. I think that’ll serve them well this year.”

Last year’s leading scorer on the team, Jack Duvel returns to the team after averaging over 14 points per game last season. Duvel was one of the Eagles’ primary ball handlers last season. The Eagles’ other primary ball handler last season, Zach Dames, graduated this past school year. 

Clark confirmed Duvel will handle most of the ball handling duties this season. While the Eagles have a lot of talent, it is inexperienced talent, Clark said. Clark also mentioned Phoenix Obermann, Tommy Meyer and Brody Kuehn as other options who can handle the ball. 

“We’ve got guys that can help out,” Clark said. “And in our offense, it’s more of pass and motion and cut and that anyway. So hopefully we won’t have to have a lot of guys putting it on the floor a great deal.” 

Unlike last offseason, Liberty Christian was able to compete in summer basketball this past summer. 

“We did a summer league all together and I feel like we really grew as a team through that,” Kuehn said. “So I think it’s gonna just grow into this season. We’re gonna play really well together.”

Duvel hopes the Eagles can build off of the strong end to last season. While they had a rough start to the season, he stressed they beat teams they were not competitive with earlier in last season. He hopes they can build off of their end of season success and just keep on building team chemistry. 

“We want to win games. That’s the main goal,” Duvel said. “ Like Butch told us, we can win or lose games, but he wants us to play basketball the right way. So if we play basketball the right way and lose, Butch is definitely a coach that wants to win, obviously. And I think everyone wants to win. But if we can learn how to play basketball the right way and if we lose or win, then it’ll be a fun season no matter what I think.”