To put it bluntly, Friday night’s East Penn Conference playoff showdown between Liberty and Allen got out of control in the second half.

After trailing 28-24 early in the third quarter, the wheels fell off the Hurricane train in a disastrous second half en route to a 69-45 defeat in Allentown.

The loss puts Liberty at 12-11 overall with a week off before learning their fate in the District 11 postseason, but last week’s loss, coupled with a regular season finale defeat to Bethlehem Catholic send the Hurricanes into districts on a mini-skid.

“I guess you can say we’ve been consistently, inconsistent,” said ’Canes head coach Chad Landis. “There was a handful of things we did right [against Allen], but then they hit a couple big threes and it got out of hand quickly.”

Joelfy Polanco (eight points) hit a pair of dagger back-to-back three pointers in the third quarter, part of a 10-0 run, to turn the Canaries four-point advantage into a 38-24 lead.

Things got worse, as Allen used a 15-0 spurt between the third and fourth quarters to blow the lead open to 57-29.

Part of the widening gap in the score was part of Liberty turnovers, as the Hurricanes committed 19 on the night, thanks in part to the Canaries second half pressure.

“Allen did some things to pressure our guards in the second half,” said Landis. “Our guys wanted to win and I think at times, we had too many guys try and do too much to get us back into the game. Things just got away from us quickly.”

Allen star Talek Williams led Friday’s show with a 21 point, 15 rebound performance, which included his signature dunks. Tyrese Martin added 17 points for the Canaries (16-6), as they moved on to play Pocono Mountain West (19-3) in Tuesday’s EPC semifinals.

Jeremy Johnson led Liberty with 10 points against Allen, but it wasn’t a night any Liberty player wanted to remember.

With a week of practice now on the horizon, Landis just hopes his team can get back on track after two straight losses.

“The good thing about being eliminated from the EPC tourney early is that you get a lot of time to prepare,” he said. “In these last two losses, one thing that stands out is that our assists have been down. We’ll get back to work and try to fix these things before districts.”

Bethlehem Catholic (14-8) hung tough with Parkland (19-3) on Friday night in the EPC playoffs as well, but the Trojans were too much for Becahi, pulling away in the second half for a 64-50 victory.

Kenny Yeboah led all scorers with 19 points, as Parkland had four scorers in the double figures, including Sam Iorio (15 points), Devante Cross (14 points) and Kyle Stout (10 points).

Justin Paz led the Becahi charge with 10 points. Kweku Dawson-Amoah and Julian Spigner each added nine points apiece.

Parkland took Emmaus Tuesday night in the other EPC semifinal.