Fillies come up short at end

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Sports

January 27, 2010 - 12:00 AM

PITTSBURG — There’s nothing wrong with the Fillies’ defense. Iola High’s girls held Pittsburg High’s Purple Dragon girls to just 28 points.
Unfortunately, the Fillies only scored 27 points in Tuesday’s Southeast Kansas League matchup on the Dragons’ court.
“Missed opportunities on the offensive end,” said Becky Carlson, Fillies’ head coach, after a final three-point attempt by Jazmyne Honeycutt bounced off the backboard at the buzzer. “We didn’t make the most of our possessions in this one.”
Pittsburg’s Kristina Willis connected at the 4:20 mark of the fourth quarter. Her basket put her team up 28-27. Neither team scored again.
“We kept getting the ball then were impatient with it. We put them on the line twice in the final 20 seconds. They missed both one-and-ones and we get the rebound. Both times we got the shots we wanted,” Carlson said.
Andie Casper and Willis each missed from the free-throw line for Pittsburg. Kelsey Larson grabbed the rebound with 19.7 seconds and Iola took a timeout with 14 seconds left.
Honeycutt broke open near the lane and her shot went in and came back out. Pittsburg’s Willis was fouled at the 2.8-second mark. This time Kayla Callahan controlled the rebound for the Fillies and timeout was called with 1.5 seconds remaining.
Iola executed the play well and Honeycutt got a clean look at the basket on a long three but it didn’t bounce into the basket off the backboard at the buzzer.
“We had great looks out of our offense all night. We didn’t finish. When we needed to score, we didn’t,” Carlson said.
Carlson said the Fillies were able to contend with the size disparity as Pittsburg’s front line has Willis, Hannah Wolgamott and Julia Perez-Diez, all 5-10 seniors, plus 5-10 Mariah Forrest coming off the bench. Iola’s Honeycutt and Callahan are both 5-8 and Shelby Greenwood comes off the bench at 5-8.
With the loss the Fillies dropped to 2-6 in SEK play and 4-8 overall. Pittsburg improved to 3-4 and 5-6.
The Fillies will face Labette County High’s Grizzlies for the third time this season on Friday in Iola. Iola lost the season-opener to Labette County then lost to the Grizzlies in the opening round of last week’s Burlington Invitational.
Willis scored eight of Pittsburg’s 10 first-quarter points. Iola came back from an 8-3 deficit to knot the score at the end of the period. Kirstin McGuffin had Iola’s first basket of the night with 5:12 on the clock.
Larson drove to the basket the hit a three-pointer with 1:48 left in the period. Greenwood had the tying basket.
Perez-Diez hit a three-pointer for the Dragons and Willis sank a free throw to push her team’s lead to 14-10 at the 5:34 mark. Honeycutt countered with a trey and Kendra Taiclet  scored for the Fillies.
Down 17-15, Iola took the lead at the free-throw line. Callahan sank one of two and on the rebound of the miss Honeycutt was fouled. Honeycutt’s two foul shots put the Fillies in front 18-17 then she delivered another three.
The Fillies led 21-17 at halftime. Neither team managed much offense in the third quarter. Willis hit a free throw for Pittsburg at the midway mark and Greenwood scored with 44.1 seconds left to keep Iola up 23-18.
A jump shot by Taiclet at the 6:34 mark of the fourth quarter had Iola up 25-19. But Casper had a three-point play and Willis cashed in on an Iola turnover to gain a 26-25 lead.
Honeycutt connected for Iola and the Fillies had the lead again. Fourteen seconds later came the final basket of the night — Willis scored for Pittsburg to take the lead.
Iola shot a frigid 22 percent, 10 of 45, from the field but so did Pittsburg, 8 of 36. Pittsburg was 11 of 19 from the free-throw line while Iola went 4 of 7.
Honeycutt led the Fillies with 10 points, eight rebounds, two steals and two assists. Larson had six rebounds, three steals and six points. Iola had 32 rebounds and 14 turnovers.
Willis, who was 6 of 9 from the line, finished with 14 points and nine rebounds. Casper had nine points.
Pittsburg won the junior varsity game 26-24 as Taiclet scored 10 points for Iola. The Dragons won the freshman game 50-20. Iola got eight points from Libby Shay and six from Keli Lee.
Iola (10-11-2-4—27) (FG/3-pt): Larson 1/1-1-4-6 Taiclet 2-0-0-4, Wilson 0-0-1-0, Greenwood 2-0-1-4, Honeycutt 1/2-2-3-10, Callahan 0-1-4-1, Powelson 0-0-1-0, McGuffin 1-0-3-2. TOTALS: 7/3-4-17-27.
Pittsburg (10-7-1-10—28) (FG/3-pt): Willis 4-6-2-14, Spresser 0-0-1-0, McGuire 0-0-2-0, Sheppard 0-0-1-0, Wolgamott 1-0-3-2, Perez-Diez 0/1-0-3-3, Forrest 0-0-2-0, Casper 2-5-1-9. TOTALS: 7/1-11-15-28.

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