Liberty’s season may have come to an end last Friday night at Parkland, but the Hurricanes will be getting back to work soon.

The Hurricanes fell to Parkland 27-9 in the District 11 6A quarterfinals and finished their 2024 campaign with a 7-4 record. The season was a major bump the traditionally proud program needed after winning only five games combined in the previous three seasons and head coach Shawn Daignault looked back with a sense of pride on what everyone involved was able to build this season.

“Generally very happy with how the season turned out,” said Daignault. “This weekend we really reflected on the year and you look back after five wins in three seasons and if you would have told me in year four we’d be a seven win team, I would have signed up for that.”

The Hurricanes four losses this year have all come to the top programs in the East Penn Conference this season, losing to Nazareth, Easton, Freedom and Parkland.

And last week’s defeat to Parkland felt similar to the other defeats, as the Hurricanes hung tough and trailed 13-9 in the third quarter until Parkland opened up the lead with a one-yard Leo Dauberman score before the quarter ended and then punctuated the game with a 28-yard rushing score by TJ Lawrence with 10:13 left in the game.

Just as their other losses this year, Liberty was always able to compete, but not able to finish the game against the upper tier programs of the conference and that’s what Daignault wants to improve upon this offseason after graduating 21 seniors.

“Felt like we matched up well with Parkland,” he said. “We fumbled a kick return in the third quarter and played three offensive snaps in that quarter. I felt that was a pretty equal game, but the same thing kind of happened with all of our losses. We competed in all those games, but need to put a complete game together against those teams.”

Liberty loses the bulk of their talent up front, losing four offensive linemen and three defensive linemen, but returning talented juniors across the board with the likes of quarterback Antonio Fontanez, along with first-team EPC wide receiver Jake Pukszyn and running back Gabe Green to name a few.

Now they have to just keep taking steps in the right direction to make year five of Daignault’s tenure even better.

“You cant measure the importance of having the type of year we had,” said Daignault. “We had to show something this year. I hope everybody is reflecting on where we’re at and still what’s left to do. We’re not among the elite of the league yet. Still have a lot to do on how to close the gap on the top teams. We worked like crazy to get where we are and there’s still more.”