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London Pavlica’s nose for basket spurs Patriots

London Pavlica’s demolition-derby playing style has resulted in multiple bumps and bruises this season.

A bloody nose wasn’t about to slow the junior guard for Liberty’s girls basketball team.

Pavlica had 12 of her team-high 20 points in the first half and sparked the host Patriots to a 66-47 nonleague win over No. 5 Spring Valley on Friday.

“Her nose was bleeding, and she’s like, ‘Coach, I’m ready to go,’” Liberty coach Chad Kapanui said. “It’s funny, but one thing about London, she plays hard, and that’s what makes her a special player.”

Pavlica appeared to take an inadvertent shot to the face in the second quarter and played the second half with a cotton roll stuffed in her right nostril.

She added eight rebounds and four steals, and her energy on defense helped second-ranked Liberty (24-1) force 30 turnovers.

Dre’una Edwards added 19 points and 12 rebounds with UNLV women’s basketball coach Kathy Olivier in attendance, and teammate Kaily Kaimikaua had 15 points and five rebounds for the Patriots.

Pavlica gave the Patriots a 51-36 lead early in the fourth quarter when she bounced the ball off the back of a Spring Valley defender on an inbounds play before scoring, and Liberty led by as many as 21 points late.

The Patriots edged Spring Valley 47-46 when the teams met Dec. 20.

“We’ve been talking about from the beginning of the season that we want to be the best team in February,” Kapanui said. “This shows that our team is going in the right direction.”

Essence Booker finished with a game-high 24 points for Spring Valley (13-10), which was coming off a 10-point win over Bishop Gorman on Wednesday.

Booker had 15 points in the first half to keep the Grizzlies close, but Liberty ended the second quarter on an 8-0 spurt to take a 37-22 halftime lead.

“We tried to mix things up defensively because they are a good team,” Kapanui said. “We’ve been working very hard at practice switching things up, and that’s the good thing about our team. We’re versatile. We can change some things up that can create problems.”

Contact reporter David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on Twitter.

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