MORE THOUGHTS ON LIBERTY'S BIG LOSS

Liberty's bid to repeat as Lehigh Valley Conference champs in boys basketball has suffered a blow.

Senior forward Anthony Gonzalez will undergo surgery next Wednesday to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee and will likely miss the remainder of the basketball season.

This is not the same knee that was operated on last September during football season.

"I wouldn't say it's definite that he will miss the rest of the season, but it's quite likely," said Liberty boys basketball coach Chad Landis. "He's not going to be rushing back to play hoops, and rightly so, since his future is in football. Someone said that there's a possibility he could return to us in the state playoffs, but that's a tough time for anyone to make a comeback to the lineup and fit in within the team."

Gonzalez suffered the injury in a game at Parkland on Jan. 12 and MRI results earlier this week confirmed it.

He missed games against Allen and Pocono Mountain West last weekend because of a college visit to the University of Pittsburgh. Gonzalez has verbally accepted a scholarship to attend Pitt and continue his football career.

Without Gonzalez since Jan. 12, Liberty is 2-1. Overall, the Hurricanes, ranked No. 1 in The Morning Call poll and No. 7 among the state's 4A teams, is 12-2 and 7-0 in the LVC.

"He has been terrific for us this year," Landis said. "He's really a terrific competitor who likes to win. We have some other guys who can pick up the slack offensively for us, but we're really going to miss him on the defensive end.

"It has been a tough senior year for him, As well as everything went for him as a junior, it's been that tough on him a a senior. But he'll get through it. He has a lot of quality days ahead of him."

Gonzalez told me after a win over Whitehall on Jan. 5 that he was just starting to feel close to 100 percent again after the September surgery. He also told me how much this basketball season meant to him since he didn't have an opportunity to have the kind of success in football he expected after winning the state title as a junior in 2008.

Although best known for football, Gonzalez was an all-league and all-area basketball player last year. averaging 12.9 points and 10 rebounds.

The injury is not expected to impede his football career.

Pittsburgh head coach Dave Wannstedt and assisant Brian Angelichio, who recruited Gonzalez, were in Bethlehem on Wednesday night to see him and are satifisfied that the injury will not jeopardize anything.

"He's going to be fine; they were not concerned at all," said Jim Tkach, a Liberty football assistant who is close to the Pitt coaches because his son, Tyler, is a member of the Panthers' program. "He should be able to recover in time to play in the Big 33 game in June. Anthony's a great kid. This is a tough thing for him, I'm sure, but he'll bounce back."

Gonzalez was hoping to reach 1,000 points. The Liberty basketball website has him with 851 career points.

In 11 games (10 starts) this season, he was averaging 11.2 points and 7.2 rebounds and was shooting 54 percent from the field.

Liberty returns to action Friday night at Dieruff and guard Jon Cann will replace Gonzalez in the starting lineup with Jarrod West sliding from the small forward (three-spot) to power forward (four) position.

"Our kids will respond to the challenge," Landis said. "They know their road just got tougher because of what Anthony meant to us defensively and with leadership. But we've had some good practices and the kids will adjust. We're just going to miss that fire, that look in the eye, that Anthony had. When we really needed to shut somebody down, Ant was our guy."

Keith Groller