Expectations should be high for Liberty’s basketball team this season following last year’s 18-8 campaign and the Hurricanes should be motivated too.

After losing last year’s East Penn Conference championship to Parkland, Liberty saw their postseason run end prematurely with pigtail defeat to Nazareth in the District 11 4A playoffs.

Head coach Chad Landis returns several key members from last year’s team including Andrew Hudak (Sr, C), Logan Priestas (Sr, SG/SF), Cameron Hoffman (Jr, PF), Amir Griffin (Jr, SG), Jeremy Johnson (Jr, PG) and Alex Serrano (So, SG/PG).

Landis also features five seniors that will provide critical depth and experience, as Caleb Martinez, Victor Santiago, Chance Neilley (transfer from Bethlehem Catholic), Doug Erney and Najee Plunkett fill out the roster.

“I believe we have a good mix of returning experience and new guys,” said Landis. “The guys have been working hard in the early part of the season. Our strength will be in our ability to score around the basket. But we will only be as good as our defense is. We have put a large emphasis on improving our defense in the early part of the season. If we can improve our defense we will be in a lot of close games this year, which will be determined by our ability to execute offensively down the stretch.”

Landis noted that Hoffman, Hudak, Griffin and Serrano are key players the team will need to lean on this year.

The ’Canes open up this season on Saturday at 2 p.m. against Ridley in the Steel City Challenge at Moravian College.

Liberty then travels to Wissahickon next Wednesday before opening up league play the following Friday at home against Easton. Liberty will then square off against Allen in next Sunday’s Yasso-Rothrock Classic.

“Our goals are to get better each week of the season,” said Landis. “We want to play in “important games” at the end of the season.

“If we are playing our best basketball at the end of the season, we feel like we can compete with a chance to win those “important games” at the end of the year.”