FENTON – The Liberty Christian Academy girls basketball team hit the court scoring.

The Eagles made 35 field goals and had five players hit double-digits in a dominant season-opening 83-9 road victory over Heritage Classical Christian Academy last Friday.

“We shot well, but I can’t say we were heavily defended,” LCA Coach Butch Clark said. “We had a lot of open shots. It wasn’t really much of a game and I don’t know how much we learned from it, but the kids got a chance to get out there and run up and down the floor.”

LCA held the host Hawks off the scoreboard in the opening period, leading 18-0 before expanding the advantage to 47-2 at halftime. It was 62-5 after the third with the Eagles outscoring their opponent 21-4 in the fourth.

LCA basketball newcomer Allie Meyer, a 5-foot-4, freshman point guard, had a game-high 19 points, shooting eight-for-18 from the floor, adding five rebounds, four assists and three steals.

Guard Annabeth Colbert had 14 points, as did freshman Anna Meyer, who knocked down four-of-10 shots from behind the arc

LCA’s other double-digit scorers were sisters Sophie Mueller and Andrea Mueller with 12 and 10 points, respectively. The duo also combined for nine assists.

Rounding out the scoring for LCA was sophomore Adison Roden with seven points, fellow sophomore Gracie Foran with five points and freshman Kylee Ball with two.

LCA shot 47 percent from the floor, made nine threes and coaxed 36 steals from the Hawks.

Ball had a game-high seven steals, Haley Hoffman six and Andrea Mueller five. Roden recorded four steals and blocked four shots in the paint.

The Hawks were limited to just 21 shots from the floor, making four. Leading the way was junior Katie Heckel, who had five points, five rebounds and two steals.

Friday was a good start for the Eagles, who are looking to build on a strong campaign last season in which they landed a program best in wins. They finished 24-4 and reached the championship of the Missouri Christian Schools Athletic Association Class 2 State Tournament in Joplin, falling to Blue Ridge of Kansas City 37-30.

Bolstering their case for a return to the tile tilt is the return of their top five scorers, including 5-foot-9 sophomores Andrea Mueller and Adison Roden.

Mueller averaged a double-double with 15.3 points and 10.7 rebounds and Roden was close at 10.5 PPG and 6.9 rebounds.

While the Eagles may be experienced, they’re still young. Though they do have a senior on their roster for the first time in three years in Hoffman. But she’s the only one and Colbert, a junior, is the only other upperclassman.

“We’ve got a few things we do well and few things we have to work on so I’m sure there’ll be some growing pains with a young group,” Clark said. “But they know what it’s like (to compete in the state championship) and we’ve made some adjustments in the way we play that can help us if we get that far again.

“We’ll see what happens. We’ve got nine kids who will play a decent amount of time and finding enough minutes for them will be a challenge. In more competitive games we may have to shorten the bench a bit.”

LCA (1-0) plays its home opener Friday against Granite City’s Rivers of Life this Friday at 6 p.m. and crosses the mighty Mississippi to take on Alton’s Mississippi Valley Christian on Nov. 19.