For Liberty Christian Pair, Numbers Are Piling Up

In order to find Orange County’s leading rebounder and her high-scoring cohort, you need to find the First Baptist Church on the corner of Pine Avenue and 10th Street in Long Beach.

That’s where Lisa Whitney, the rebounder, and Sharon Crouch, the scorer, play their games and attend practice with the Liberty Christian High School girls’ basketball team.

Liberty Christian plays there because the Huntington Beach school has no gymnasium. The school would like to build one on campus, but there are other, more pressing needs, such as a new science wing.

For now, Whitney, Crouch and their teammates toil outside the county line. It’s a 30-minute van ride and a world away from the high-profile programs at other, larger county schools.

Although they compete in the Southern Section’s smallest division and have to play away games that are closer than home games, the players have compiled some noticeable numbers.

Whitney, a 5-foot 10-inch senior forward, averages 18.9 rebounds a game, best in Orange County. Crouch, a 5-10 junior point guard, averages a team-high 18.2 points a game and is among the county’s leading scorers.

The Minutemen, largely because of Whitney and Crouch, are having the best season in school history.

Liberty Christian (enrollment 100) finished its regular season 17-1 overall and 12-0 in Academy League play. The Minutemen won the Academy championship with their first undefeated league season and are second-ranked behind Rio Hondo Prep in the Small Schools division.

However, there remains a certain level of obscurity playing for a school with 100 students.

Liberty Christian is the kind of school where an administrator opens the door to the office and hollers out a student’s name, closes the door and says, “How do you like our P.A. system?”

Despite the lofty statistics and rankings, neither Whitney nor Crouch is being swarmed with scholarship offers.

Whitney has not received any scholarship offers. She wants to play in college, either at Colorado State or Cal State Chico, but she hasn’t decided which.

Crouch, who still has another year at Liberty Christian, has received letters from Southern California College, Point Loma Nazarene, Biola and the University of Idaho.

“I wonder sometimes, if I did go to a public school, would I make the team?” Crouch said.

But, she added: “If you’re good enough and talented enough, you’ll be found.”

Dave Clifton, Liberty Christian’s coach, has no doubt that each could play at Sunset League schools, where the competition is stiffer than in the Academy League.

“They would have progressed faster (at a bigger school),” Clifton said. “They would have had no choice but to progress. Sometimes it’s funny to watch them play against teams in our league.”

Though both have emerged among the statistical leaders this season, Whitney and Crouch have arrived from opposite directions.

Crouch grew up trading elbows with her brother, Tim, Liberty Christian’s starting quarterback the past two seasons, playing in the family’s driveway.

Whitney, on the other hand, could not play basketball before her freshman season.

She dribbled the ball off her knee, couldn’t make a layup, couldn’t even get the ball to the basket from the free-throw line.

“I didn’t even know the rules,” she said.

“With Lisa, we had to start from scratch,” Clifton said.

Whitney tried out for the team at Circle View School in Huntington Beach but failed to make it.

Crouch has all the moves down pat. She makes three-point jump shots and acrobatic driving layups and even takes a defender into the low post to shoot her version of a sky hook.

“I learned all the things guys do from my brother,” Crouch said. “I’m his sister, but I’m really like his brother. He taught me everything.”

Said Clifton: “She makes these weird moves. She squirms to get open. She can weave through a hole that’s only a foot wide.

“Sharon is the most natural and Lisa is the hardest worker. It’s a team show, but they are a couple who stand out.”