Salina Liberty Playbook: Our Best Game Yet

The Salina Liberty came within a few plays of getting their first win at home Saturday against cross-state rival Southwest Kansas. This week, they’ll host the Oregon Lightning on Saturday Night, April 19th, with kickoff scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET from the Tony’s Pizza Events Center and streaming on EvergreenNOW.

Best Game Yet 

The Salina Liberty were so close to picking up their first win Saturday when the Southwest Kansas Storm came to town. They lost a close one by a score of 22-20, but there were a lot of positives to take out of this one. Head Coach of the Storm, Gary Thomas, was very complimentary of his opponent, saying, “I think the version of Salina everybody saw on Saturday is a better version of Salina than what they put on the field against Corpus.” 

Liberty Head Coach Heron O’Neal was happy with what he saw overall. The Liberty opted to surprise everyone and started quarterback Jamario Benson in place of the typical starter Javin Kilgo. I asked Coach O’Neal about that decision, “Basically just trying to get a spark, Rio (Jamario) is a good football player at a lot of positions, and with him working his butt off at quarterback and a lot of other positions it was his time to show off what he can do.” 

Coach continued, “In the fourth quarter, with us being down two scores, I thought Rio put us in the pole position, but I thought it was an opportunity for Javin to come in and try to save the day; we just ran out of time.” “I will say this, that was the best football we’ve played and the closest game we’ve played in.” 

Lightning Week

The Liberty has had a tough schedule to open up the season, playing four games thus far, three of them being against teams that are still undefeated after six weeks of play. In all but one, they’ve been close late in the game and just need to close out. They’ve got some reinforcements as the Liberty made a few roster moves this week. 

“We got a new quarterback in, a new offensive and defensive lineman as well as a new receiver on the way.” The Liberty signed quarterback Rakeem Cato, a well-traveled and experienced indoor quarterback out of Marshall University. They also brought in lineman Torree Boyd, who is a four-time all-league offensive and defensive lineman. 

Coach O’Neal wouldn’t commit to a starting quarterback for Saturday, as he doesn’t know who will start yet himself. It’ll be an open competition this week, and in the end, the experienced championship-winning coach plans to trust his gut, which rarely lets him down. Tune in Saturday to see who the Liberty roll out at quarterback.