GARNETT — A week ago, the Iola boys lost to Anderson County at home thanks in part to a second-half breakdown that saw the Bulldogs pull away from Iola and turn a two-point halftime lead into a 14-point victory.
Thursday’s rematch had a similar result but the Mustangs painted a much better picture in their 59-50 loss in Garnett.
Once again, Iola started off the game well, taking a double-digit lead early before the Bulldogs stormed back to tie it up at the half.
Now comes the tricky part. Like the week before, Anderson County’s potent offense came out the break firing, racking up three after three. A key 8-0 run gave the Bulldogs an eight-point lead with two minutes left in the third quarter.
But unlike last week, the Mustangs dug in and held strong, never letting Anderson County completely take the game away.
“Anderson County shot well and we still held them to 59 points and that’s with fouling them at the end,” head coach Luke Bycroft said. “We played defense. They just were making everything. A lot of their threes were guarded. They just hit them. I am disappointed that we gave up some easy buckets on drives and cuts and our help defense wasn’t great but we got out and challenged them.”
The Mustangs got within four points with less than two minutes left in the game and had chances to cut it even closer but they just couldn’t seem to buy a bucket when they were absolutely desperate for one.
“We did so many things well to keep us in the game but we shot the ball poorly,” Bycroft said. “We hit some key threes to give us a shot but we were 12/33 for two-point buckets. We didn’t finish around the basket. And yeah, there was some physicality but normally we finish a lot of those shots.”
Leading the way for the Mustangs was senior Ethan Holloway who only had nine points, all of which were scored in the second half, but brought an even bigger presence to the low post.
“He had 16 rebounds,” Bycroft said. “We’ve been challenging him. In the last two games, he’s had 30 rebounds. And these past two games have been the most physical of the year. That shows me that he’s becoming the inside physical presence, at least rebounding-wise, that we need him to be.”
Despite the loss, Bycroft still has liked what he’s seen from his team over the past week. Even though it’s late in the season, the growth is continuing.
“You can see signs that we are becoming the team we want to be,” Bycroft said. “The past two games were mentally and physically tough and we demonstrated toughness and I’m proud of that. It’s nice to have everyone available now. We now have the ability to rotate between guard that are ball-handlers and shooters.”
With the loss, the Mustangs drop to 9-8 and 5-6 in league play. They will close out the regular season next week by hosting Wellsville on Tuesday and then traveling to Santa Fe Trail before sub-state starts that next week.
“It’s a big week,” Bycroft said. “It would be huge for us to end the year on a solid note with two strong wins because they’re both good teams that have beaten us. So beating them will give us momentum going forward into sub-state.”
JV and Freshmen Scores
The JV boys won 54-48. Sophomore Cal Leonard had 14. The freshmen boys won 65-33. Landon Carson had 15 and Isaac Badders had 10.
Iola (14-11-11-14—50) (2pt/3pt-FT-F-TP) Holloway 3/0-3-4-9, Ashmore 0/3-0-0-9, Bycroft 3/0-2-1-8, Sigg 4/0-0-1-8, Leonard 0/2-0-1-6, Barnhart 1/0-1-1-3, Rogers 0/1-0-2-3, Preston 1/0-0-1-2, Regehr 0/0-1-3-1, Vink 0/0-1-1-1. TOTALS: 12/6-8-15-50.
