Perhaps no one has experienced more success in local basketball in recent years than Liberty High's boys program.

Not only have the Hurricanes won three Lehigh Valley Conference titles in the past six seasons, but they've also qualified for the state tournament seven times in the last eight years.

But this year has been different for Liberty, which had to scramble to schedule and then win a makeup game last week just to qualify for the District 11 Class 4A tournament.

Once in, however, it seems like old times for Liberty, which scored 19 unanswered points in the second half Wednesday night to turn a three-point game into a 58-38 rout of host Whitehall in a 4A preliminary-round game.

The Hurricanes (12-11) earned a Saturday night date with No. 1 seed and Mountain Valley Conference champ Pocono Mountain West at Pleasant Valley in the second game of a 4A quarterfinal. Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg North will meet in the 6 p.m. opener.

Jaevan Dobbins and Ludwin Gonzalez scored 17 points apiece and Deshawn Oyeniyi added 12 points and 12 rebounds as Liberty ended Whitehall's season at 13-10.

"It's a good time of year to be playing arguably our best basketball," Hurricanes coach Chad Landis said. "It's a credit to the guys and their determination to not have the season end. We've been pretty close a couple of times to not making it through."

But there was nothing close about this one, at least in the fourth quarter.

Whitehall led 5-2 and 7-4 early, but spent most of the night playing from behind. The Zephs trailed 28-17 at halftime, but rode the hot hand of senior Aaron Keglovits to get within 39-36 after a Keglovits trey with 1:20 left in the third quarter.

The Zephyrs wouldn't score again, however, until 2:45 was left and Liberty had used the aforementioned 19-0 run to go up 58-36.

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Liberty rolls past Whitehall 58-38 in the District 11 4A tournament