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Liberty heats up, defeats Green Valley

Liberty's football team had trouble getting out of its own way in the first half Friday.

Nothing stood in the Patriots' way in the third quarter, though.

Kenyon Oblad completed 10 of 13 passes for 218 yards and two touchdowns in the third quarter as the Patriots began to pull away, then held on for a 46-35 win over visiting Green Valley in a Sunrise Region semifinal.

Liberty (10-1) will visit Basic (10-1) in the Sunrise final at noon on Nov. 28.

Liberty committed six lack of discipline penalties in the first quarter, including four false starts and one encroachment before finally getting untracked at the end of the second quarter.

"We felt like most of the problems with us in the first half offensively were our own doing," Liberty coach Rich Muraco said. "False starts and a couple of holding penalties. We got on them about fixing the mistakes.

Marquell James' 2-yard run capped a 10-play, 77-yard drive that allowed the Patriots to take a 14-13 lead with 38 seconds left in the first half and handed momentum to Liberty, which had routed Green Valley 51-17 when the teams played on Oct. 1.

"That was big," Muraco said of the late score." It was our tempo offense. Once we were able to get first downs, we could line up and go fast. As long as Kenyon is making the right reads, it's a tough offense to stop."

Liberty started the second half on fire and didn't look back.

Oblad's 44-yard pass to Gavin Caci on the third play of the half and a face mask penalty at the end of the play set the Patriots up at the Green Valley 11. Three plays later, Oblad found Darion Acohido in the left corner of the end zone for a 10-yard TD pass.

After Liberty forced an intentional grounding penalty on Green Valley quarterback A.J. Amelburu in the end zone for a safety, Oblad needed just four plays to hit Caci on a 22-yard TD pass to make the score 32-13.

Oblad was just six of eight for 96 yards in the first half before picking apart the Gators (6-5) in the third quarter.

"It was just going good, the receivers were getting open," Oblad said. "It was pretty easy to just get them the ball."

Two more big plays — a 21-yard pass to Bryan Roland and a 25-yard pass to Acohido — gave Liberty at the ball at the Green Valley 5 as the third quarter ended.

Oblad's 5-yard run on the first play of the fourth extended the lead to 38-13 and appeared to put the game away before the Gators rallied.

A.J. Amelburu tossed TD passes of 12 and 23 yards to Isiah Macklin as Green Valley closed within 38-27 with 4:07 to play.

But Liberty recovered an onside kick, and on the next play, Stephon Stowers raced 64 yards around the left side to increase the lead to 44-27.

Oblad finished 16 of 23 for 314 yards. Stowers rushed for 235 yards on 27 carries as Liberty racked up 573 yards of offense.

"I thought it was important the way we showed we were able to play a close game for a half and make some adjustments and come out and execute in the third quarter," Muraco said. "It's tight and a lot of times, we have been up big at halftime and they come out loose. This was a different feeling for us."

Amelburu was 19 of 32 for 312 yards and four TDs — three to Macklin — for the Gators, who were outgained, 245-2 in the third quarter but still finished with 399 yards of offense.

Contact reporter Bartt Davis at bdavis@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5230.

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