The Mercer Island boys beat Liberty on Tuesday night 53-45, but thanks to another KingCo game, moved up in the KingCo standings.

While the Islanders were in Renton playing the Patriots, Lake Washington was busy beating Sammamish, which created a three-way tie for second place in the league. The Islanders, Sammamish and Lake Washington are all now 7-2 in league games, tied for second, while Bellevue sits at 7-1 for the top spot.

Over the next week, the final of the regular season, each of the top four teams will play each other in a battle for the KingCo title.

Against Liberty Tuesday, the game started off tied 13-13 at the end of the first quarter. In the second, Mercer Island took the lead, scoring 14 to the Patriots three. The score was 27-16 at halftime.

After the break Liberty came out strong scoring 21 points, while holding the Islanders to 10 on their end. But a 16-8 fourth quarter in favor of Mercer Island tipped the game for the Islanders.

Joe Rasmussen had 14 points during the game, while Brian Miller added nine. Jeff Lindquist posted eight points, followed by seven from Sam Cohn, six from Kaleb Warner and three from Nick Nordale. Sean Hughes, Parker Scott and Karsten Sherman each had two points.

The Islanders will take a break until Friday when they face Juanita in an 8 p.m. KingCo game at home. They then travel to Sammamish for a 7:30 p.m. game against the Totems.