Iola High’s basketball and wrestling teams got back into practice mode last week. The squads open the second half of their seasons this week as school is back in session.
Iola High’s Fillies and Mustangs have their only home games of January on Tuesday. Anderson County High’s Bulldog teams come to Iola in non-league action.
Iola High’s Mustang wrestling team opens Southeast Kansas League action Thursday. The Mustangs go to Pittsburg to wrestle the Purple Dragons and the Fort Scott High Tigers.
Tuesday’s games will be re-matches for the Fillies and Mustangs with the Bulldog teams. Iola and Anderson County played each other in the final round of the Anderson County High Invitational tournament Dec. 10 in Garnett.
“We’ve had a productive week of practice since Christmas. It helps that in our first game back we’re taking on a team we’ve already faced this season,” said Bill Peeper, Mustang head coach.
“We know we can compete with them and we’re excited to get back into action.”
The Mustangs are searching for their first win of the 2010-2011 season. They are 0-6 which included a 53-49 loss to Anderson County.
“We’ve worked on the basics and getting better at some of the details we needed to,” Peeper said. “We’ve seen improvement since getting back in the practice gym.”
Peeper said the Mustangs were playing pretty well defensively in the first six games of the season. It was offensive production that was a stumbling block for the Mustangs.
“We’ve worked on execution of the offense and shooting better.”
Peeper said the Mustangs go into the second half of the season healthy.
As for the Fillies, senior Carly Mulsow joins the playing ranks for the team. Mulsow, who suffered injuries to both arms in an accident over Labor Day weekend, was cleared to practice the first week of December.
“Carly was practicing with us but really didn’t have time to get up to speed on what we were doing before the break,” said Becky Carlson, Fillies’ head coach. “Having her back gives us depth at two positions because she can play a forward or in the post.”
The Fillies are 4-2 going into the second half of the season. The Fillies defeated Anderson County 46-22 on Dec. 10.
“We ended the first part of the season on a good note. We’re excited to get back to playing games,” Carlson said. “We had solid practices last week to get us ready and now it’s time to get back to business.”
The Fillies and Mustangs are on the road the rest of the month with games at Girard and Fort Scott on Friday and next Tuesday. Then have a Friday off before going into the Burlington High Invitational, Jan. 17-22.
Iola’s teams have another night off, Jan. 25, before opening SEK league play at Coffeyville on Jan. 28.
Iola’s wrestling team comes off a pretty good start to the season. The team won its first ever tournament trophy — third place at Caney Valley — in December.
“We had a pretty decent week of practice after the break,” said Ron Schomaker, Mustang wrestling head coach. “We get into the more challenging part of our schedule now with SEK action.
“We’re looking for our guys to step up to that challenge. Matches against league teams are going to be tougher competition than what we’ve seen so far.”
Senior Drew Shepherd, who was hampered by a knee injury and did not participate in the first half of the season, is back. Schomaker said Shepherd had knee surgery over the break and is expected to compete the rest of the season.
“We concentrated on aspects of our techniques that we felt we needed to work on during the break,” Schomaker said. “We hit our kids pretty hard in teaching the techniques in December and now it’s time to fine tune those as we get into the tough part of the schedule.”
After wrestling two SEK teams Thursday, the Mustangs go to the Burlington High Invitational tournament Saturday.
Next week, the Mustangs have back-to-back SEK double duals. On Tuesday, Iola and Parsons are at Columbus.
Then on Jan. 13, the Mustangs host their only SEK double dual as Chanute and Labette County come to Iola. Action starts at 5:30 p.m. in the IHS gym.
IHS teams ready for second-half run
