Freedom’s girls’ basketball team won a spot in the District XI Class 6A semifinal after defeating Easton, 52-41, in the quarterfinal last Friday at Catasauqua High School.

“I expected exactly what we saw. A team that was really hungry, that wanted to compete, that wasn’t intimidated, that was more motivated by losing three times to us,” said Freedom coach Dean Reiman. “I always like competing against Dave’s [Lutz] teams because they’re well-prepared and they play hard.”

The Patriots had an eight point lead after the first quarter, but the Red Rovers narrowed that down to five points by halftime.

“Specifically, me, I had to be more careful with my fouls, and we had to get more offensive rebounds,” said Freedom sophomore Kailey Turpening, who had 12 points for the Patriots. “We started getting them in the second half, but rebounds win games, so we had to get more boards.”

The Pates also had Easton’s Cassidy Saylor in their sights, who was held to six points.

“Brenna Ortwein had to guard her today, and she did a phenomenal job,” said Turpening. “We knew what they were going to do and we were ready for it.”

Ortwein also hit a three pointer at the end of the second quarter when teammate Kayla Jefferson sank her first free throw but missed the second. Ortwein rebounded and made the three.

“It’s OK if we miss a shot as long as we’re flying around, trying to get a loose ball, every available rebound, anything we can do to get possessions on the ones that we fail on,” said Reiman.

“And that first possession in the fourth quarter was a long possession that we had to run three different things and eventually got a score out of that, and I thought that was a really good possession.”

The possession resulted in a three pointer from Patriot guard Corrin Gill and extended Freedom’s lead to 16 points.

“That’s the thing about this time of year. If you lose focus, even for a quarter, it’s going to cost you,” Reiman said. “We lost our focus at times in this game, but not for a long time, and it has to be that much more important as we move forward.”

Freedom senior Jennifer Kokolus was the game’s top scorer with 17 points.

This Tuesday, past Press deadlines, Freedom will have faced Pocono Mountain West in the district semifinal. If the Patriots won, they will play for the district championship against Tuesday’s winner of Parkland versus Nazareth on Friday with time and place to be determined.