Monday night saw the Freedom boys basketball team return to competition for the first time in 335 days.

Although the game at Northampton was hypothetically a rematch of last year’s District XI 6A title game, the Patriots graduated 9 players from their championship squad while the Konkrete Kids graduated 8 from their runner-up team.

The K-Kids exacted a measure of revenge by spoiling the Patriots’ debut, 63-45.

A pair of early technical fouls and season-opening jitters led to a 14-0 Northampton lead just 1:47 into the game. Freedom closed the gap to 21-13 by the end of the first quarter.

A Nicholas Ellis 3-pointer to start the second quarter brought the Patriots to within 5 points, but they were never able to get the margin below that number. The K-Kids finished the second quarter on 10-3 run to take a 42-27 lead into the intermission.

Northampton shut down the Freedom offense in the third quarter, limiting the Patriots to three points while the Kids notched 11. With a 53-30 advantage going into the final 8 minutes, the result was a foregone conclusion.

The dynamic duo of Isaac Harris and Lucas Lesko were the game’s leading scorers with 25 and 18 points respectively. Harris did most of his damage from the charity stripe, where he went 13 of 16. Lesko shot 8 of 12 from the field, including a crowd-pleasing dunk in the second quarter.

Rounding out Northampton’s scoring was Joe Kerbacher with 9, Jackson Fehnel 4, Brayden Hurst 3, Cooper King 2, and Jackson Vajda 2.

Ellis led Freedom with 13. Jaden Tillett had 9, Jalen Fletcher 7, Josh Washington 6, Jack Barnes 5, Aaron Levy 3, and Luke Wasilick 2.

Freedom coach Joe Stellato assessed his team’s performance.

“It felt good to get out there and let the kids play,” he said. “Defensively, we were poor. We have to find a way to get some stops. Offensively, I think that will come. We missed a lot of shots. A lot of guys first experience on a varsity floor. We have to find a style that fits this team because we can’t play the style we played last year.”

Northampton coach Coy Stampone spoke about his division-leading 5-1 squad.

“It was good to get back out,” he said. “With this weather and everything, it’s been crazy. We’ll take it. We’re in the gym and playing. Our goal before the season was to get to 5 wins.”

The teams will meet again on Wednesday before continuing on with their remaining schedules. Northampton finishes up with a game against Nazareth and pair against Bethlehem Catholic. Freedom is scheduled to play their 10-game slate over a 17-day period ending February 24.

District XI announced last week that this year’s basketball tournaments would be open, so all teams will be given the opportunity to enter. If all 13 6A teams opt in, there will be a pigtail round of 10 teams whose winners will move on with the top 3 seeds into the quarterfinals. Only the district champion will qualify for states.