Teams got back on the hardwood just after the New Year and Freedom took home a win over city rival Bethlehem Catholic last Friday night.

The Pates opened up a four-point halftime lead with a big third quarter to run away with a 53-39 win over the Hawks.

Jayden Leatherbury led the way with 13 points for Freedom, as Joel McNeil added eight points and Daniel Santos chipped in with seven points to improve the Pates to 8-5 on the season.

Head coach Joe Stellato was happy to see his team grab their first win in 2025 and hopes the trend can continue over the second half of the season.

“The takeaway from the Bethlehem Catholic game was in the third period we took the game over by being patient on offensive and defensive pressure,” said Stellato.” We executed and made the extra pass. We need to continue sharing the basketball and continue to get better rebounding the ball. Rebounding the ball has been the one weakness this season.”

The Pates will get tested this week with another city showdown on Tuesday at home against Liberty (9-3) and then a road showdown at Northampton (7-4) on Friday night.

The Hurricanes have won four straight games since losing to Pocono Mountain West just before the holidays, as they squeaked by Easton 38-36 last week.

Jake Pukszyn scored nine points in the win and Jarrell Teague had eight points in the low scoring matchup.

Outside of their showdown with Freedom this week, Liberty will also take on Nazareth (8-3) on Friday night too.

Becahi (4-8) hopes to climb the ladder in the win column this week, but won’t have any easy matchups, as they square off against Northampton on Tuesday and host Easton (4-7) on Friday.