Colin Hogan is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Liberty High School for AZPreps365.

A culture of excellence: many envy it, only a few can obtain it, but Liberty High School athletics has maintained it. 

It is a culture that has created, as girls soccer coach Kyle Pooler said, a small Texas town feel. 

Since the school's opening in 2006, Liberty has won 19 state championships across a number of sports and has produced over 30 individual state champions as well. 

“When I am sitting in my office, I can look up at our nine state championships we have won over the past few years,” Liberty’s athletic director Eric Gardner said. “It is pretty cool, but it is also just a part of the culture here.”

This school year alone, Liberty has captured an Open Division State Championship in football and celebrated three individual state titles in both boys and girls wrestling. 

Boys basketball coach Mark Wood, who has been with Liberty since its founding, said Liberty has found the recipe for sustained success.

“The evolution has to do with the providing of resources for athletics and, in turn, hiring coaches who work really hard at developing a culture,” Wood said. 

In Wood’s 19 seasons with Liberty, they have made the playoffs for the last six seasons and 11 times total, which includes a 2024 6A state championship.  

For Wood, the key has always been to build a culture that always encourages athletes to be the best version of themselves. This philosophy has not just generated success for his program but has also bled across all of Liberty’s athletics. 

Gardner said Liberty has prided itself on not just its success, but also the excellence of its students. 

“We simply just have great kids,” Gardner said. 

This year alone, over 50 student-athletes signed letters of intent to play at the collegiate level, which includes numerous Division I recruits. A standout among this year's senior class is Henry “Hank” Dillworth.

In the fall, Dilworth won Arizona’s cross country Gatorade Player of the Year, while finishing runner-up in the state championships. Dilworth said that without his teammates and coaches, he would not be where he is today. 

“The team has gotten a lot closer over the years; we are a tight group,” Dilworth said. “The coaches push me every day, and I have gotten to know them not just as coaches but as people.” 

Dilworth is still searching for gold on the track team this spring. 

Another headliner, a part of Liberty’s 2025 senior class, is potential MLB draftee Braeden Watson. Currently committed to UC San Diego, the 6-foot-4-inch Swiss Army knife helped lead Liberty’s baseball team to a state quarterfinal appearance in 2024.

Gardner said the level of student-athletes at Liberty is world-class, and a lot can be credited to their youth programs. It has nurtured numerous athletes, including boys basketball sophomore Nicholas Topolosek.

The 6-foot-2 guard has been a two-year varsity player and helped the team capture the 2024 6A state championship. However, his Liberty roots run deep.

Topolosek said he joined the youth program in eighth grade and fell in love right away.

The boys basketball youth program, called Chaos, helped Topolosek learn the ways of Wood’s culture before stepping through the doors at Liberty. But more importantly, it started the foundation of a brotherhood with fellow sophomore Jacob Hunter, Topolosek said.  

“If you see me, you see us,” Topolosek said. “We are always together, that is my brother.”

Hunter, who earned 6A Desert Valley Region honorable mention, and Topolosek will look to help lead Liberty back to the promise land in 2026. 

Football coach Colin Thomas, who has won back-to-back Open Division state championships, said its youth programs have been vital to its success. 

“I know a lot of us push what it is to be successful in our feeder programs,” Thomas said. “It allows you to get kids who have a relative understanding of what we want from them.”

This local pipeline of development pays major dividends, considering Liberty's student population is nearly capped. This means they are restricted in open enrollment recruiting, unlike many of the top dog schools in the Valley. 

Thomas said the team ends the year with senior testaments, giving the seniors a chance to reflect on their time in the program. He said every year, there is always a large group of seniors who reflect on their time with the Junior Lions program and how greatly it impacted their time within the program. 

Over the years, stars have emerged from Liberty’s football team, like current Arizona State defensive tackle MyKeil Gardner and former back-to-back Arizona Gatorade Player of the Year Navi Bruzon. 

This year, Thomas is sending off six of his athletes to Division I schools. Quarterback Hayden Fletcher and offensive lineman Jace Gardner are headed to Northern Arizona, offensive lineman Nicholas Spence is going to Minnesota, offensive lineman JR Hecklinski to New Mexico State, offensive lineman Caden Branston to Colorado State and specialist Brody Johnson to Montana State.  

Along with elite kids, Gardner said Liberty is full of blue-blood coaches who all feed off each other.

Baseball coach Chris Raymond, who also helps out on the football staff, and Thomas may exemplify this the best. Between the two coaches, they share five state titles in their time at Liberty. Raymond even called Thomas a close personal friend.

“Our relationship is vital,” Raymond said.

Raymond said the two often bounce ideas off each other to, in turn, help both become better coaches. 

However, the two are in agreement and said they believe none of this success would be possible without the support from the community and the school's administration.

Top to bottom, from parents to school faculty, Thomas said the support Liberty’s athletic programs have is unwavering. 

“People here are all in,” Raymond said. “People want to see Liberty be successful, and they show it.”

It all starts with Liberty’s principal Shawn Duguid, who Gardner said is at nearly every single event the school has. From sports to the arts to academics, Gardner said Duguid is all about supporting his students. 

“He is the best principal in the world, and I stand by that,” Topolosek said. “He is at all our games to show his support and is a person who is always there for us.” 

From there, the support has trickled down and expanded. Pooler said there is nothing like it in Arizona.

“There are businesses in the area that play our games and want to attach themselves to the Liberty brand,” Pooler said. “It is special.”

The kinship within the community embodies what Liberty athletics is all about. Gardner said all these athletes do is support each other.

“We have a Lions Athletic Council that meets once a month, and all these kids are talking about is how to get better, how they can support each other,” Gardner said. 

Topolosek, who is a part of the Lions Athletic Council, said that it has helped him grow his leadership skills and credits the help of Gardner to that.

“He always wants what is best for us, on and off the court,” Topolosek said. 

Liberty has become the model for athletics in the stats, and it all stems from their culture of excellence being the standard. 

“People ask me, ‘What are you doing over there Gardner, to make things so different?’” Gardner said.