The Northampton boys basketball team suffered their first loss of the season in a 35-22 defensive struggle against Liberty last Friday night in Pete Schneider Gymnasium.

Neither team shot the ball well. The K-Kids were 9 for 41 from the field, including 4 of 17 from three-point range. The Hurricanes were 13 for 38 overall and 6 of 17 from beyond the arc.

Head coach Matt Scholl summed up the performance, “I knew this was going to be a battle coming in. I thought we played hard, but we didn’t play tough. And that’s a young team. Guys without experience and we’ve got learn from that. We’re going to lose games. You’re not going to win them all.”

After trailing 8-5 after the first quarter, Northampton took their only lead of the contest by scoring the first five points of the second quarter on a Brady Simock three and a bucket from Noah Walakovits. However, the K-Kids didn’t score again in the first half as the teams went to the locker room with the visitors leading 18-10.

With points at a premium, each possession was critical, and Liberty did a better job extending possessions with offensive rebounds to make up for their spotty shooting. The Hurricanes led 28-17 after the third quarter and the Kids were never able to make a late run.

Sholl explained the offensive struggles, “They rushed us. We got sped up. The shots that we’ve been getting the last couple of games, they were there, but they (Liberty) were closing out a little faster and we missed them. Everything we did wrong today is fixable, so I still think we’re a pretty good team. If you play good defense, you’re going to be in most games. You just have to score more than 22 points.”

Walakovits led the team with 11 points. Simock had 6. Korbin Sollars scored 3 and Ethan Rephun had 2.

The team bounced back on Monday with a 58-45 home win against Parkland. They fell to a resurgent Allen squad on Tuesday 63-45 to bring their season record to 5-2, 4-2 in the EPC.