After winning two-in-a-row, the Iola boys seemed they were well on the way to recovery after the nastiness that late December and January brought them.
Unfortunately — just like flu that gripped the country over the past several months — the Mustangs just can’t seem to fully rid themselves of their past struggles proven by Friday’s 71-57 home loss to Anderson County.
The loss wasn’t apparent from the start though.
Iola had done a heck of a job bottling up a very potent Bulldog offense in the first half, holding them to just 26 points and only a couple of threes.
Offensively, Iola wasn’t much better but just like last Friday’s win over Burlington, the defense was keeping them in the game and hopefully, the offense would come around.
“It was ugly but that’s how we play defense,” head coach Luke Bycroft said. “When we’re playing well we make them look ugly. They’re used to scoring 70-some points and in the first half, it looked like we were going to keep them from doing it. We challenged shooters and we challenged drives and we rebounded the ball like we wanted it more than they did.”
Iola grabbed 23 rebounds in the first half and things seemed to be on the same track when the second half started.
The Mustangs were staying in front but threes were starting to fall for Anderson County. Iola led 36-35 with 2:30 left in the quarter when things got sloppy. The Bulldogs moved swiftly and without mercy going on a 10-0 run in four straight possessions before the Mustangs could even compose themselves.
Anderson County put away four more points before the Iola scored again.
“When things don’t go our way for a few possessions we have a breakdown,” Bycroft said. “They took advantage of that. When we got weak-minded, they pounced on us in a hurry and changed the entire outlook of the game in that quick little segment.”
The lead stood at 13 points and two Iola technicals sent the Bulldogs to the line for four of their 18 fourth-quarter free throws. Iola only grabbed 14 rebounds in the second half.
Iola found some momentum with two and a half minutes left in the game and they cut it to single-digits but it wouldn’t matter. Anderson County could not be stopped enough to get the Mustangs back into this one.
“I asked them in the locker room if it’s a conditioning problem because I’m running out of reasons why we don’t play well in the second half,” Bycroft said. “I asked them if they were too tired to put out the amount of effort that they showed in the first half and they don’t feel like that’s the issue. I’ll watch the film and see what I think.”
With the loss, Iola moves to 8-6 and 4-4 in league play. The Mustangs will play Osawatomie next Tuesday before having to face the Bulldogs again on Thursday in Garnett.
JV and Freshmen Results
Iola junior varsity won 52-33. Sophomore Calvin Delich had 9 points in the win.The Freshmen Mustangs won 60-19. Isaac Badders had 18 points and Landon Carson had 16.
Box Scores
Iola (14-14-8-21—57) (2pt/3pt-FT-F-TP) Holloway 8/0-0-2-16, Sigg 6/0-0-4-12, Rogers 3/0-3-2-9, Ashmore 0/2-1-0-7, Leonard 0/2-0-0-6, Preston 1/0-1-3-3, Vink 1/0-0-3-2, Barnhart 0/0-1-1-1, Regehr 0/0-1-4-1, Bycroft 0/0-0-3-0. TOTALS: 19/4-7-22-57.
