Liberty Ranch of Galt wins first CIF basketball championship, extending win streak to 27
No one in a Liberty Ranch jersey could hold back the emotions once the final buzzer sounded, including coach Josh Williams.
Williams coached the boys basketball team for seven seasons at the Galt school, reaching the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section finals three times, but ultimately coming up empty-handed each time.
Williams stepped away from coaching in 2019 to get some quality time with his three daughters. But the Galt native found himself back on the Liberty Ranch bench last season, this time with the Hawks’ girls program.
His daughter Lexi was an incoming freshman who had a chance to play varsity ball, and that impacted the coach’s decision to return. And in his first year coaching his daughter at Liberty Ranch, the coach finally reached that mountaintop.
With a 55-50 win over Riverbank on Thursday afternoon at Golden 1 Center, the top-seeded Hawks of Galt won the program’s first section championship, taking the Division IV banner.
“I told the team I’m saving our first championship win for when my daughter’s a part of it, and here we are,” Williams joked in the postgame news conference. “It was really emotional, whether it was my family or the school I’ve been coaching at my whole career.”
It’s been a banner winter for Liberty Ranch athletics. Both girls and boys soccer teams won section titles last week at Cosumnes River College. The girls basketball team now follows suit with its first.
Junior Haley Smith, who also helped the Liberty Ranch girls volleyball reach its first section championship game before a devastating loss in the finals, was on a mission to bring a title home to Galt on the hardwood. Smith scored a game-high 26 points and pulled down eight rebounds for the Hawks, who won their 27th game in moving to 29-2 overall this season.
“I told everyone we had eight minutes for the rest of your life,” Smith said after the game. “Everyone had to keep their head up. Some people were putting their head down, but I’m like, ‘Keep your head up. You’re OK.’ And I think it got so much better, especially in the fourth quarter.”
Smith, who became the program’s all-time leading scorer earlier this season, brings a second section championship to her own household. Her brother, Cody, won a blue banner with the Hawks boys basketball team in 2022 under head coach Brian Chavez.
On Thursday, the Hawks withstood a hounding defensive effort from the Bruins, who forced 32 turnovers. After a 17-17 first quarter, the Hawks began to create separation with a 32-26 halftime lead.
Smith took charge in the second half, upping her aggressiveness with the ball in her hands. Fourteen of her 26 points came from the free throw line, and the Hawks in total shot 24-of-32 from the stripe.
Riverbank junior Leilani Olanolan led the Bruins with 18 points before fouling out in the fourth quarter. Senior Taylor Macias, the program’s all-time leading scorer, added 12.
Sophomore Kamrynn Blevins had 9 points and seven rebounds for Liberty Ranch. Madisyn Robbins added 5 points and seven boards. And the only four-year varsity player for the Hawks, Kendall Duryee, finished with 9 points, six rebounds and three assists.
“We’ve worked so hard for the past four years and I feel like this is the year it finally came together,” Duryee said. “We worked hard all season, all preseason, for the past two years, and I’m just so proud of how we all worked together.”
Liberty Ranch has now won 27 straight games. The Hawks have progressively set new program records for wins in a season in each of the past three years.
“My freshman year, we were already good and we knew that,” Duryee said. “The next season, we wanted to do better. And then the next season, we got pushed because we got knocked out in the first round. We were like, ‘That’s not happening again.’ So, this offseason was just extra hard for us because we put more pressure on ourselves and it clearly paid off.”
Both teams will continue their season, as section finalists and semifinalists earn automatic CIF Northern California tournament bids. Those brackets will be released on Sunday afternoon.
Nick Pecoraro is a sports journalist and host of “Premier Preps with Nick Pecoraro,” a weekly prep show available on YouTube that recaps games and teams in the Sacramento area each week. Find it at youtube.com/@PremierPreps.
This story was originally published February 27, 2025 at 6:23 PM.