LIBERTY, NY — So far for the Lady Indians, it’s been “Winless in Liberty.”

On Monday, January 30, during a home-stand girls’ varsity league basketball game against the Lady Comets of Fallsburg (10-4 overall, 4-0 division), the Lady Indians (0-10) were defeated by a whopping 40 points.

One of life’s lessons, as in sports, is that while you “win some, you lose some,” it’s not how many you chalk up on the ‘W’ side of the ledger, but how you play the game until the final bell.

How’s that for clichés?

On the bright side, Liberty drew first blood, and the score seesawed back and forth in the early minutes of the opening frame, until Fallsburg surged to a 18-6 lead at the close of the period.

During the next couple of frames, the Lady Indians game plan began to unravel as their opponents outscored them 24-9 and 22-9, action on the hardwood court that featured steals, over-thrown passes, and a couple of air balls.

All of which added points to the Lady Comets tally.

In the fourth period, Fallsburg’s subs got into action, and Liberty snatched at the opportunity, racking up a 5-point advantage (12-7).

Liberty’s hoopsters pulled out the stops under the glass during the final minutes of the last frame, as three players hit the deck and were sidelined with injuries.

Liberty’s top guns: Kelsey Morgans (16 points including a ‘three’) and Rosalyn Troutschold (4), while Nicole Keyes added a three from beyond the arc.

Fallsburg: Diamond Weeks (30 including four threes), Amanda Zeno (17 including a pair of threes), Zariah Williams (11 including a three).

Stats from the charity line: LCS 1/7 (14%); FCS 6/13 (46%).

“The girls played a good game… a really hard tough game. They play down to the wire in every game,” said Carlton Williams, coach of the Lady Indians. “The score doesn’t really indicate how hard we play.”

Daniel Redmond is at the helm of the Lady Comets. “We got off to a slow start, and finally got to turn it on,” he said. “That’s kind of our MO [modus operandi]… we start slow and then get hot.”

Redmond credited “some very special guards” with the team’s overcoming a 1-3 start this year on the way to eight consecutive wins: freshman Amanda Zeno; Zariah Williams, a sophomore; and junior Diamond Weeks, who recently posted her 1,000 point for Fallburg, the first girl in the school’s history to reach that milestone.

Camryn England is a 17-year-old senior co-captain of the Lady Indians.

“We haven’t won yet… [but] it’s a big improvement from last year,” she said. “We’re just going to keep working.”

Diavian Smith is a 17-year-old senior captain for the Lady Comets.

Her take on the season?

“We started off a little rocky…I want to make it to sectionals and win the divisional title,” replied Smith.