Word traveled fast after Liberty’s girls basketball team beat Nazareth, 41-40, last Tuesday, so Northampton was prepared for a fight with the Hurricanes on Friday night.

“And we knew from last year when we played them,” said Northampton coach Jeff Jacksits. “We knew they were gonna fire threes, and then they got hot, and all of a sudden we stopped doing what we were supposed to do, but we survived.”

The Konkrete Kids led, 20-9, at halftime and later hung on for a 34-31 victory over the Hurricanes at Northampton.

“It was a good test. We’ll take it,” said Jacksits. “[Liberty’s] quick, and they can cover everything, and [Coach Jarrett Carnes] likes to come up and pressure. We knew that was coming. We practiced all day yesterday on beating the press.”

As the third quarter remained scoreless for four minutes, Coach Carnes hoped to shake things up by inserting Abby Thompson and Jordan Thompson into the game.

“I call them the Swiss Army Knives because they can play anything from two through five, so lots of credit to them for coming off the bench and giving some key minutes to us,” Carnes said. “They were able to play great defense and knock down some shots. They forced some turnovers, and they can rebound the ball, so they gave us a little spark and we went on a run.”

Jordan Thompson’s 3-pointer near the end of the third quarter brought the Hurricanes to within eight points, and two 3s by teammate Ava Kopetskie to open the fourth quarter put the K-Kids on high alert.

Liberty took a brief one-point lead on Emma Pukszyn’s three-pointer, but Grace Lesko tied the game and later took back the lead for Northampton.

In the final minute of play, Pukszyn scored two more points on a turnover underneath Liberty’s basket. Then, Nicole Yellen’s layup put the K-Kids three points ahead.

“We were trapping the corner, I was supposed to get [Layla Orth], and then I just saw the ball on the floor, and then it was a sprinting match between her and me,” Yellen said. “It felt like the tide was turning, so we had to keep going.”

Liberty had two chances to tie in the last 22 seconds; the first on a blocked shot by Grace Lesko.

“I was pretty confident that if I was in the right spot at the right time, they wouldn’t be able to get a shot off because it’s pretty hard to shoot over somebody like me,” said Lesko who had 14 points for the K-Kids. “Defense, we had to talk a lot. We couldn’t just give up. I’m proud we won. I think there are still a lot of things that need to be worked on, but I’m proud we did what we did.”