The Northampton girls basketball team has been plagued by inconsistent shooting and turnovers this season and both symptoms were on display last Friday as they dropped a 52-32 contest to Liberty in Pete Schneider Gymnasium.

The most glaring numbers were 16 turnovers and 4 of 17 shooting from three-point range.

It was a game that slipped away little by little.

The K-Kids scored the first four points of the contest, but the Hurricanes recovered to claim a 10-7 lead by the end of the first quarter.

That grew to a 22-15 deficit at the half for the Kids. They trailed 34-22 after three quarters. Liberty ended the game on an 11-3 run to make the final margin a little wider than perhaps it should have been.

Anne Beenders led Northampton with 10 points. Isabella Pecuch had 8. Rose Echevarria scored 6. Abbie Luipersbeck and Jenna Raysley each had a 3-pointer. Laila Reichl scored 2.

After the game, head coach Jeff Jacksits joked, “When it was 4-0 I kidded, ‘We should just go into our stall offense.’ A lot of times when we’re in position to score, we’re not fast enough to do anything with the ball. We take too many dribbles and then we don’t have a shot.”

Overall, the team now stands at 9-11 overall and 4-10 in the EPC. To assure automatic district qualification, they need to win their final two games to reach a .500 record.

However, they can also reach districts by holding on to the eighth place in the district power rankings despite being below .500. Right now, Allen is their closest pursuer.

On Thursday, they travel to Bethlehem Catholic. The Golden Hawks beat the K-Kids 49-25 back on January 7. The regular season wraps up with a home game against Freedom on Monday. Northampton handled the Patriots 53-32 when they met three weeks ago.