A pair of key sequences told the tale Friday evening in Iola High’s 65-54 loss to Burlington.
The first came late in the third quarter, with Iola overcoming Burlington’s early barrage of 3-pointers to take a 40-37 lead.
The Wildcats called a timeout, and ran a set play for an open 3-pointer to knot the score.
“For whatever reason, from that point on, it felt like we started settling for tougher shots instead of getting to the rim,” Iola head coach Luke Bycroft said.
Burlington ended the period with a 9-3 run.
The second pivotal point came in the opening moments of the fourth quarter as Iola’s Landon Weide was blazing upcourt for a layup. He collided with a Burlington defender as he laid in the bucket, but was called for an offensive foul.
The score was nullified, but more importantly, Weide had to go to the bench with four fouls.
Burlington’s Chance Hegg responded with a 3-pointer, and suddenly Iola trailed by six, 49-43.
An Iola miss then led to a 3-point play by Burlington’s Sage Fejfar to make it a nine-point game.
Bycroft put Weide back on the court, but with four fouls, he was limited on how aggressively he could play at both ends of the court.
Iola never closed to within six points from there as the Mustangs fell to 8-5 on the season.
“When Landon wasn’t there, it didn’t take long before they had control,” Bycroft noted.
The ending soured what had been a dandy ballgame.
For the Wildcats, Hegg was white hot from 3-point range early, draining four treys in the first quarter.
Burlington led 22-18 after one and 33-30 at halftime.
