Offense was hard to come by through two quarters of play during Mercer Island’s game against Liberty Friday night. But when it finally arrived for the Islanders, it came from all over the court.

Struggling to find an offensive rhythm in the opening half, Mercer Island boys basketball found its groove after halftime, bouncing back from their first league loss of the season to beat the Patriots 52-35 Friday at MIHS.

Mercer Island coach Gavin Cree said afterward he wasn’t all that surprised by the early offensive struggles.

“I wouldn’t expect it to be a real high-scoring affair in general,” Cree said. “Both teams like to play defense, and they were certainly trying to slow the pace a little bit. I think we didn’t have quite enough intensity in the first half defensively to force them to speed up, but we did that better in the second half.”

The Patriots (7-5, 3-3) held the Islanders (10-5, 6-1) to seven first-quarter points, leading 10-7 after the game’s opening period. While Liberty managed to hold Mercer Island to single digits in scoring for the second quarter as well, the Islander defense limited the Patriots to six points, as Mercer Island evened the score 16-16 heading into the break.

In the third, a basket from Noble Cooper gave the Patriots a 20-18 advantage early in the quarter before Mercer Island’s offense came to life. The Islanders responded with a 16-0 run to close the period, with Andrew Pickles, Gabriel Boucaud and Sam Nordale each scoring four during the stretch. Mercer Island wouldn’t allow Liberty to come within 11 points the rest of the way.

Pickles led Mercer Island with 13 points, while Emerson Schulz contributed 10. Cooper led the way for Liberty with 13 points.

Coming off the team’s first Kingco loss earlier in the week to first-place Bellevue, Cree said he wanted to see better ball management from the Islanders against Liberty. He said turnovers and poor offensive execution ultimately did his team in against the Wolverines.

“I thought we did better in this game, but we still could do much better,” he said. “We need to be more disciplined about executing our offense.”

Next for the Islanders will be the King Holiday Hoopfest, beginning at 12 p.m. Monday, Jan. 19 at Bellevue College.