Freedom head coach Joe Stellato and the Patriots envisioned Saturday's District 11 4A boys championship game against Parkland differently than how it actually panned out.

The Patriots, who trailed by 12 going into halftime, saw their deficit grow to as much as 22 in the third quarter of their 65-50 defeat to the Trojans over the weekend.

"I don't know what to say," said Stellato. "We just didn't get it tonight. It was their night."

It was obviously disappointing. We all thought we could do this, and we all wanted to do it so bad. It just didn't work out."

And despite coming up short to the Trojans three out of four times this season, including in the LVC tournament semifinals in mid-February, there is still basketball left for the Patriots to play this season.

"We got to find a way to regroup on Tuesday in practice and get things going here," said Stellato.

The Patriots opened up an early 9-4 lead after Nyreef Jackson, David Williams, and Nigel Long all hit three-pointers in the opening quarter.

But the Trojans responded to take a one-point lead into the second quarter, and outscored the Patriots 38-22 over the second and third quarters.

"We're not much of a three-point shooting team to begin with," said Stellato. "One of our keys to the game was to get the ball inside, and I don't think we did a very good job of doing that. I thought Parkland did a great job of pushing us off the block."

Jackson was the lone Patriot in double figures, scoring a game-high 20 points. But as a team, the Patriots struggled to sustain any rhythm offensively until the fourth quarter when they scored eight of the first 10 points to cut Parkland's lead to 11.

"When they got five guys on the floor playing that well what are you doing to do," said Stellato. "You just do the best you can. And when we got into foul trouble, we were really fighting an uphill battle. So we just came up short on it."

Derike Chiclana had nine points for the Patriots, and Long added five in the defeat.

The Patriots will open up play in the PIAA tournament against Upper Darby from District 1 on Saturday. Tipoff is slated for 3 p.m. at William Allen High School.