Liberty kept one-upping Conroe Friday night. Literally, after each of the first three quarters, the Panthers held a one-point lead.
That’s until the fourth quarter happened.
Conroe flipped the switch after a motivational timeout from head coach Tamisha Houston and the Tigers outscored Liberty by 13 points for a 46-30 non-district win.
Liberty (2-2) came into the night on a two-game winning streak and allowing just 22 points per game. Even in an opening-night loss to Port Neches-Groves, the Panthers lost with just 25 points allowed.
Conroe (5-3) was down 15-14 at halftime and 22-21 after three quarters until finally showing its might against the Class 4A team and breaking through on the Panthers’ defense.
“I think we were just a little bit too confident,” Conroe senior point guard Alisa Sneed said of playing the smaller school. “We’re a bigger team. We’re taller and we should win this game.”
Houston knew Liberty would come in with a nothing-to-lose mentality against the 6A Tigers.
“I knew they were going to be competitive,” Houston said. “And I knew that the fact that they were playing against a higher class team was going to give them the motivation to compete. They want to walk out of here with a win as anybody would.”
If it weren’t for Conroe’s bench helping it hang around in the first half, that fourth-quarter blitz might not have been possible.
Just five points from Damiri Anderson and a bucket from Taylor Smith was all the starters produced in the first half. Kayleigh Phillips, and Lisa Jacques produced six points while MiQuael’a Jackson connected on a free-throw.
“To be able to go to your bench and get points, that is going to help us further along in the season,” Houston said. “If somebody is a starter and they’re not playing well, then that bench player knows they have the confidence to come in and do it.”
It was a sluggish opening 11 minutes for the Tigers with just a pair of buckets in the first quarter and some missed free throws in the first couple minutes of the second quarter.
Alas, Conroe picked up some steam with a 7-0 run that helped it climb from an 11-5 deficit. Jacques sparked the run with a putback. On the next possession, Anderson splashed a 3-pointer from the right wing. A minute after that, Anderson put in a layup to take 12-11.
After Liberty went back up 15-12, Jacques made a baseline drive with 2:05 left for the final bucket of the first half.
Conroe totaled just seven points in the third quarter with Riley Gross picking up four of those.
Off the bench, Maliyah Harrison knocked down a 3-pointer in the fourth quarter that sparked a 15-3 run that put the game out of reach.
After Jaclyn Haley hit a 3-pointer for the Liberty at the 7:05 mark which tied the game a 27-all, Smith picked up five of the next seven points with her work in the paint. The other bucket was a putback by Riley Gross.
“Our posts started finishing,” Houston said. “Once our posts started finishing, it opens up the floor for everything else.”
Sneed made a layup with 5:12 left and then led a fastbreak to the hoop where she made the shot and the foul for a 39-27 lead and was the final points of a 12-0 run.
“That was exhilarating,” Sneed said. “I was going in there and I said, ‘I’ve got to get this’. I need to help my team get a momentum change.”
Liberty did make a field goal for over six minutes in the fourth as Conroe moved ahead.
What were Houston’s words of wisdom down the stretch?
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result,” Sneed explained. “Clearly, that’s what we were doing and weren’t getting the result. She told that to us a little bit and it turned the switch on.”
“In one of the timeouts, I told them that it didn’t look like they were going to make the corrections from me telling them,” Houston said. “So maybe we need to lose to make them realize that what they are doing is not working.”
A strategy switch on defense helped as well.
“We went to a full-court, man-to-man,” Houston said. “And for some reason that relaxes them, as funny as that sounds. It takes the thought process out of it and they can use their athleticism and their speed. They can make people uncomfortable.”
Smith finished with a game-high 13 points, 11 of which came in the second half. Sneed added eight while Gross had six.
Conroe came up short of the 49.1 points per game it was averaging coming into the night. The 30 points allowed was below the 37.4 points allowed through seven games.
Conroe started the season 3-0 before dropping three of the next four, including 39-35 Tuesday night at Tomball where the Tigers turned it over 24 times.
The Tigers turned it over 20 times against Liberty, but most came in the first half.
Conroe begins District 13-6A Tuesday night at College Park.
Conroe junior Anastacha McGowen (4) handles the ball in the second half against Liberty on Nov. 15, 2024. (Chris Zorzi/SportCast Media)
