Ending the season on a good note

Omotola career high 22 points and key free throws late, help the Lady Flames put away the Highlanders

Perhaps it was due to the 35 minute delay to the start of the game, or perhaps it was because Liberty already owned the top seed for the upcoming Big South tournament going into Friday’s contest, but Liberty did not play its best basketball of the year against Radford. They did, however, play well enough to finish the season with a 72-66 victory, their 15th win in the last 16 games.

What began as a Liberty-dominated contest became a much tighter ballgame after Radford went on a 9-0 run, bringing the score to 38-30 with 14 minutes to go in the second half. The Flames found baskets hard to come by, connecting on only 38 percent of shots from the field throughout the game.

What the women lacked in shooting from the field they made up for at the free-throw line and in aggressive play at the boards. As a team, Liberty earned 31 points at the free-throw line to Radford’s eight. Liberty out-rebounded Radford 47-31.

With just over one minute left on the game clock, Radford had closed the gap to within five of the home team, but seven converted free throws by the Flames in the last 56 seconds sealed the victory.

Redshirt juniors Tolu Omotola and Devon Brown scored in the double digits from the free-throw line, with Omotola earning a career high 10 points off of 14 attempts, and Brown draining 11 of her 13 attempts. As a team, Liberty was 31-39 shooting free throws for a 79.5 percent average.

Omotola and Brown, alongside sophomore forward Jasmine Gardner, led the Flames with nine rebounds each. Senior Danika Dale added seven.

The emergence of Omotola and Gardner in the wake of senior Avery Warley’s lesser playing time was the key element that kept Liberty in the game.

“Tolu did an exceptional job. I think Tolu ended up with nine rebounds tonight. I would like to compliment Jasmine Gardner. Jasmine had nine rebounds and that was all in the first half … I think Devon Brown had nine rebounds, so you have three girls with nine rebounds and Danika Dale wasn’t too far behind with seven, so they were really active on the boards tonight and we needed that,” head coach Carey Green said.

Omotola and Brown ended the night tied in another category, with each scoring a team-high 22 points, a career high for Omotola.

Despite the final score being a bit closer than what they may have hoped it would be, Green was happy with his team enduring some adversity and having to show some fight as they prepared to enter the tournament.

“I don’t think that we’re good enough that we show up and everybody is just going to hand us the trophy for the championship. The reality is that we’re going to have to go out and work for it. If this wasn’t a wake-up call, I don’t know what would be a wake-up call. The last three games we’re playing two teams that were struggling at the bottom and that can give us some misconception of how good we really are. Radford is middle of the pack, and if we don’t respect our opponent then we’ll get ourselves in trouble,” Green said.

The players echoed their coach’s remarks in regards to readying for the tournament.

“It’s a good preparation for us in the future because in playoffs you just don’t know what to expect. People are going to come out and scratch, pull hair and do whatever they can to get the ‘w’ so, definitely, this was good preparation for us. I’m happy about it,” Omotola said. “We’re going to win it (Big South) for our seniors and we’re just coming back… to take what we lost last year.”

The Flames will begin the Big South Tournament on March 9 as the top seed in the eight-team tournament. The event will be hosted by High Point University in High Point, N.C.