A little change paid off in a big way for the Iola girl’s Friday night when they got a win at home versus Anderson County.
The Fillies have struggled at times on the offensive end and have seen several games go by the wayside due to their inability to get the ball in the hoop.
Friday’s 48-38 win, especially the second half, showed Iola moving in the right direction thanks in part to some tweaking.
“We changed our offense a little bit,” head coach Becky Carlson said. “We put a new one in and the girl’s like it. I don’t know if it’s good but they liked it and ran it well tonight. It allows us to move and be more fluid. It opened the lane up.”
It seemed to serve the Fillies well. After struggling through the first half and carrying a one-point lead into halftime, Iola found their rhythm and went to work, opening up the half on a 7-0 run leading to an 18-3 third quarter and a 16-point lead.
“You look so much better when you make baskets,” Carlson said. “We did pretty much the exact same thing in the first half that we did in the second half but the only difference was that we got shots to fall. And then once we got our shots at the rim, that allowed us more room on the outside to make some plays.”
Senior guard Colbi Riley may have only scored six in the game but she was definitely behind the controls of the Fillies new look, doing everything from slashing through the Lady Bulldogs press to driving to the bucket and getting to the foul line to getting good, timely passes to her teammates which they turned into points.
“I told her before the game that when you have a point guard and every time you look at her she looks calm and cool it relaxes everybody else,” Carlson said. “She just gets the ball down the court for us and does a great job.”
One of the main beneficiaries of the new offense and Riley’s accurate passes was junior Madisyn Holloway who hit from all over, scoring 16 points.
“She had kind of struggled with her shooting over the last several games but in the second half she really loosened up,” Carlson said.
The win marked the first time all season that Iola has won back-to-back games as they move to 6-10 and 4-4 in Pioneer League play.
“And we’re going to win two more,” Carlson said with a laugh. “I hope we will anyway. These were ones we felt like we could win. It was great.”
Iola will have a pretty good chance to make it four-straight as the Fillies open next week by traveling to Osawatomie, a team they beat by almost 30 in January, on Tuesday before meeting up with Anderson County again on Thursday.
Freshmen Results
The Freshmen Fillies lost 41-38. Becca Sprague had 12 points and Lauryn Holloway had 10.
Box Scores
Iola (9-5-18-16—48) (2pt/2pt-FT-F-TP) Holloway 7/1-0-3-17, Gardner 2/1-3-3-10, Carson 3/0-0-3-6, Riley 1/0-4-2-6, Bauer 1/0-3-1-5, Moore 2/0-0-4-4, Morrison 0/0-0-3-0. TOTALS: 16/2-10-21-48.
Anderson County (4-10-3-14—31) (2pt/3pt-FT-F-TP) Pedrow 5/0-0-2-10, Feuerborn 2/0-1-3-5, Foltz 1/0-2-3-4, Spring 2/0-0-1-4, Schekel 1/0-1-3-3, Lickteig 1/0-0-1-2, Schmit 0/0-2-1-2, G. Spring 0/0-1-1-1. TOTAL 12/0-7-15-31.
