Liberty Goes Back-to-Back, Downs Basha for Second Straight Open Title
Mountain America Stadium, Tempe — December 2024
One year after breaking through for their first Open Division crown, the Liberty Lions proved it was no fluke. Liberty defeated Basha 35-17 in the 2024 AIA Open Division state championship, becoming the first program to win back-to-back titles in the division since Arizona introduced the bracket for the state's top-tier programs.
The win closed the book on a Basha team that had spent the season establishing itself as one of the state's most dangerous programs, but Liberty's blend of discipline and firepower proved too much on the sport's biggest stage. The final score reflected a Liberty team playing with the poise of a program that had already been through a championship run and knew exactly what it took to finish the job.
For Basha, the loss stung, but it was a mile marker, not a dead end. The Bears would be back in the Open Division championship picture the very next season, eventually breaking through themselves — a reminder of just how deep and competitive the top of Arizona high school football has become.
Liberty's second straight title cemented the Lions as the standard-bearer of the Open Division's early years, a program other elite Arizona teams — Basha included — would spend the following seasons trying to dethrone.