Liberty Christian sprinted out to a 19-0 lead after the first quarter in their 43-point home district win over Thomas Jefferson School last week. 

Liberty Christian scored the first 19 points of the game and led 35-4 at halftime in their 60-17 win over the Titans Friday night. After jumping out to the early double digit lead, Liberty Christian started mixing in their bench players into the game in the final three quarters. 

“You could obviously just run up a score and it wouldn’t help you a great deal either,” Liberty Christian Academy boys basketball coach Butch Clark said. “So we tried to get all of our kids in and get them some meaningful minutes to where they have to run some offense and mix up the combinations a little bit.” 

While no Liberty Christian player reached double figures in scoring, six Eagles scored at least six points. Senior Jack Duvel led the Eagles with nine points. Brody Kuehn scored four of his six points in the first quarter to give Liberty Christian an early 7-0 lead. Julius Amann, Levi Coovert and Willie Mueller each added seven points. Tommy Meyer scored six points. 

Clark said he liked how the Eagles came out defensively early in the game. Liberty Christian’s defensive effort helped them build a 19-0 lead after one quarter and a 31-point lead at halftime. 

“I like the way we played defense early,” Clark said. “But on the flip side, they really aren’t as skilled offensively as what they were last year. So it’s hard to get a good read. You’re out there attacking them like you want them to, but you have no fear that they’re gonna put it on the floor and blow by you either. So we didn’t really get a chance to see what our help defense was going to look like.”

Clark said they would have a better idea on the state of their defense after road games against Mid-Missouri Home School and Heritage Classical Christian Academy earlier this week. Liberty Christian entered those games 2-0 after earning home wins over Lighthouse Prep Academy and Thomas Jefferson School. 

With a strong number of returning contributors from last year’s team that finished the season with a 7-7 record in their final 14 games, Clark expects the Eagles to be competitive throughout the season. 

“I think we’ll get better as the year goes on,” Clark said. “We’re still missing some shots we should hit inside. We get the shots, we’re not finishing as well as we should. But I think we’re gonna get there. I think by the end of the year, we will be ok. I expect us to be pretty competitive and we’ll find out. We’ve got some tough teams on the schedule… I think we’re gonna have a lot better read a week from now where we’re at.”