Fillies fall in foul-fest

BURLINGTON — With all the gusto of a sputtering jalopy, Saturday’s matchup between the Iola High and Independence High girls saw fouls.
Lots of fouls.
In between refs’ whistles, Independence found its offense from both the free throw and 3-point lines to come out on top, 60-49, in the consolation semifinals of the Burlington Invitational Tournament.
The loss sends the Fillies (4-7) into today’s seventh-place game, where they’ll take on Rock Creek at 3:30 p.m. in the Burlington Middle School gymnasium.
The game turned, Iola head coach Becky Carlson noted, with a lack of execution — and those pesky fouls.
“All the fouls took the momentum away from the game,” Carlson said. “It was frustrating to not know what they were calling. Usually, I’d tell the girls to play how the refs were calling it, but they couldn’t do that today.”
That’s because regardless of defense — and sometimes even if no contact was made — a player occasionally was whistled for a violation.
Seventeen players suited up in the contest. Sixteen were whistled for at least one violation.
Iola wound up without the services of starters Sydney Wade and Riley Murry by the mid-point of the fourth quarter when they fouled out. Two other starters, Ashley Shields and Toni Macha, had four fouls by game’s end.
Still, Iola had matters in hand in the early going, racing to a quick 11-4 lead.
“That second quarter, we just didn’t execute as well,” Carlson said. “We got frustrated, and we didn’t do what we should have.”
Independence put together a 12-4 second-quarter run to lead, 16-15.
The teams traded the lead three times after that until Independence’s Rindy Marquez’s back-to-back 3-pointers keyed an 8-2 run to give the Lady Bulldogs a 29-26 halftime lead.
Mikaela Platt, Macha and Wade each scored early in the third quarter to give Iola the lead, 34-33. But Independence’s Kallie Smith converted a traditional three-point play to give the Lady Bulldogs the lead for good.
A pair of 3-pointers early in the fourth quarter helped Independence push the lead to double digits.
Macha led the way for Iola with 20 points. Shields and Wade followed with 8 apiece.
“Toni got some good looks at the basket,” Carlson said. “We did some good things. One thing we did well was play aggressive. I thought Sydney did a good job of moving the ball. Ashlie Shields played well on offense.”
Marquez led four Independence players in double digits with 14 points.
Independence (8-21-9-23—60) (FG/3pt): Renfro 0-2-5-2, Marquez 1/4-0-3-14, McGrath 2-9-3-13, Hufferd 1-0-3-2, Smith 2-5-3-9, Lawrie 4-2-2-10, Schabel 1-8-3-10, Keller 0-0-1-0, Carter 0-0-1-0. TOTALS: 11/4-26-24-60.
Iola (13-13-10-13—49) (FG/3pt): Wade 1/1-3-5-8, Riley 2-0-2-4, Murry 0-0-5-0, Bannister 0-0-2-0, Shields 3-2-4-8, Lohman 1-3-2-5, Platt 0-4-3-4, Macha 7-6-4-20. TOTALS: 14/1-18-29-49.