Peoria girls basketball ended Liberty’s run and advanced to the Division II state tournament semifinal with a 58-47 win at Grand Canyon University Arena.

It was the Panthers fourth try in six attempts to reach this point and a relief for coach Leslie Saulsby.

“It’s the farthest we’ve been since I’ve been here,” said Saulsby, who’s in his sixth season as coach. “This was our 30th win. It also was (CeCe Pearl’s) 95th or 96th win. That’s an amazing amount of wins for that young lady. So I look at it as we’re playing for her. I would like nothing better in life than to give a state championship trophy to CeCe.”

Pearl started the second half with a jumper from the top of the key which opened gates for the Panthers. They outscored the Lions 17-5 in the third quarter and held them without a field goal until fresman Courtney Christmas hit a three pointer with 28 seconds left in the period. Thanks to strong perimeter shooting from Felicia Foster and Taylor Blue, Peoria turned a 23-21 halftime lead into a 40-26 edge heading into the fourth quarter.

The Lions, who were held scoreless for nearly 10 minutes, made things interesting when Pearl fouled senior Megan Colvin as she drained a three-pointer. Colvin made the free throw to cut the lead to 12 then Vanessa Rivera stole a pass at half court and fed it to Ashley Honomichl to make it a 10-point game with 2:37 remaining.

That as close as Liberty would get as Peoria hit its foul shots down the stretch to seal the win.

The loss ends an eight-win turn around for the Lions. They reached the 20-win plateau for the first time in the program’s history and reached the quarterfinals for the second time.

Quite a feat considering where the program was at last year, but not all together surprising, said coach Odell Berry.

“We didn’t have any seniors last season, so spent a lot of time with the juniors talking about senior leadership and what that meant to a team,” Berry said. “(The seniors) stepped up and became leaders this year and didn’t settle for second best. That filters down throughout the program.”