Liberty Boys, Eastside Catholic Girls Find Stride

Team-first mentality fuels Eastside Catholic and Liberty as the programs head into semifinal matchups.

BELLEVUE, Wash. – After finishing a quick postgame interview, Liberty senior Max Vermeulen waited to talk to a second reporter. Then he realized he had forgotten to say something. He walked over and, just above a whisper, said that above all else, he wanted to make sure he credited the coaching staff and his teammates.

It would have been understandable if Vermeulen wanted to talk about himself, he had just knocked down seven threes during Liberty’s 58-43 win over Blanchet earlier this week in the District 2 3A Boys Basketball Tournament.

“We just showed a lot of passion in this game,” Vermeulen said. “We really wanted it after our last game (a 64-49 loss to Bellevue in the KingCo 3A title game). We were just flowing and working as a team.”

But that’s not how this Patriots team approaches the game. When Liberty is at its best, the Patriots run the floor, make the extra pass, and knock down open shots.

“I don’t think it’s a secret to anybody we’re going to play, we’re a three-point shooting team,” Liberty coach Omar Parker said. “We’re not afraid to run and shoot the ball. We’ve got five, six, seven guys who can shoot it on any given night, so if you key on Jackson (Whittaker), someone else has got to step up, and Max did. Credit to him.”

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The Patriots’ reward for beating Blanchet is a district semifinal matchup against Rainier Beach (8 p.m. tonight at Bellevue College). The Vikings haven’t lost a game since December.

However, regardless of how the game unfolds, one thing is certain: the Patriots will be playing for each other.

“You can say a lot about a lot of teams,” Parker said. “The one thing that stands out about our team is that they really are in it for each other. We’ve struggled with toughness at times, but we’ve never struggled with being together.”

Nduka, Crusaders Riding Five-Game Win Streak

I walked up to Amy Nduka after Eastside Catholic’s 56-44 win over Mercer Island in the District 2 3A Girls Basketball Tournament earlier this week and asked her about the difference between last year’s team and this one.

Her answer caught me by surprise.

“I wasn’t on the team last year,” she said. “I wouldn’t know.”

My response: “You’re a freshman?”

Now, I certainly should have known. After all, she is the only player from Washington on the ESPNW 2028 rankings. But I hadn’t taken a close look at the roster and had based my question on the way Nduka played.

At 6-foot-4, she fights for every rebound. She plays with poise. She keeps her teammates involved, and she isn’t afraid to take an elbow on her way to the basket.

Oh, and she already knows how to answer postgame questions.

“We just realized that staying together is important because when we get frustrated with ourselves, it doesn’t help us win,” Nduka said. “We’re just playing together.”

For the Crusaders, the season turned around a few weeks ago after back-to-back losses to Lakeside and Lincoln.

“We got smacked by 26 (against Lakeside), and I think that just put some fire under them,” Eastside Catholic coach Darnellia Russell said.

During the next game, the Crusaders realized they were letting opponents dictate the game, so they decided that, for the rest of the season, win or lose, they weren’t going to let opponents control the flow of the game.

“They just decided they’re going to play for each other and play together,” Russell said.

Eastside Catholic has now won its last five games and recently secured its first Metro League title since the 2019-20 season, beating Lakeside in the process. The Crusaders can now win their second straight matchup with the Lions at 6:30 p.m. tonight when the teams meet in the district semifinals at Bellevue College.