At the beginning of the season, Liberty Christian Coach Butch Clark made sure to align his expectations with reality.“I tried to look objectively at what we were facing,” said Clark. “There were some other teams returning a lot of talent. We had talent, but talent doesn’t always win.”Perhaps he was a little too modest.His own team possessed its share of skill and proved so by battling its way back to the Missouri Christian Schools Athletic Association championship game, where it finished as runners-up for a second straight year, going 25-8.“They reached their potential,” said Clark, whose team went unbeaten in the Metro Athletic Conference.“I thought we could be Top 3,” said Clark. “Realistically, I knew Eagle Ridge and Fulton would be the two teams we’d have to beat.”Liberty Christian swept both of those opponents, unleashing a 10-game winning streak following a 2-3 start to the season.“I thought that was when the season was decided, in December when we managed to win both of those games,” said Clark.How well the Eagles’ offense thrived typically depended on how effective its defense was. Liberty Christian trapped most of its opponents, speeding the game up and creating points off turnovers.“Most nights other teams weren’t really able to run an offense, because our pressure was so good,” said Clark. “I think we were really successful in taking teams out of the games they wanted to play.”On the contrary, Liberty Christian had its best offensive season ever, averaging a program-best 68 points per game.“When you combine that with the way we defended, it made for some games where we had a pretty easy margin,” said Clark.The Eagles’ three-point shooting didn’t develop as much as Clark had anticipated.“When we got into a halfcourt game, they just didn’t seem to play as well and we never had consistently good outside shooting,” said Clark.Senior Tanner Meyer ran the offense from his point guard position, where he scored a team-best 16.8 points per game.“Tanner did a great job of leading our team this year,” said Clark. “He really matured in terms of leadership from the beginning of the season until the end.”Meyer also set a new school record in assists, averaging 8.1 per game.He and fellow senior Calvin Edwards, who averaged 14.5 points and 12.2 rebounds, were facilitators first and scorers second.“Our two main guys weren’t afraid to dish it off and share the assists,” said Clark. “They were very unselfish and were willing to work hard in the offseason.”The Eagles’ scoring ran deep, with several underclassmen providing a promising foreshadowing for the future.“We weren’t sure where our points were going to come from after Calvin and Tanner,” said Clark.He quickly found out, as Jake Pietzman scored 32 points in the season opener.“We found our first game that Jake was going to be a factor,” said Clark. “We came out running and he was down the court getting wide open looks from three and knocking them down.”Pietzman averaged 14 points and four rebounds per game.Eighth-grader Andrew Voss emerged as a three-point threat, finishing second on the team with 42 treys while averaging 7.6 points per game.Clark says Kameron Bagby, who netted six points and six rebounds, was an excellent complement to Edwards.“Kameron did a good job,” said Clark. “He’s different than Calvin. He’s never going to be the beast on the boards that Calvin is. He plays so strong.”Clark believes the future of the team is still bright with nine underclassmen returning.“We’re going to have talent coming back,” said Clark. “There’s no question about that.”EAGLES CONTINUE SUCCESSDerrick Forsythe photo.