LOUISBURG — Before the season started, coach Jay Applegate was confident his new team would not only be able to learn his offense in time for the first game of the year, but also learn the more in-depth intricacies as the season progressed.
But after Friday night’s 63-52 loss to Anderson County in the Louisburg Tournament fifth-place contest, Applegate knows he must return to the fundamentals with his team.
“We just didn’t run this offense,” Applegate said. “We’re just not running it. We’re just kind of going amuck out there right now. It must be my fault so we’re going to work on that.”
Friday night’s matchup with Anderson County was Iola’s third game in five days and the long week appeared to take its toll on Applegate’s offense.
The Mustangs finished the contest 15-for-45 from the floor, including just 2-for-11 from beyond the three-point arc.
Iola’s best chance at making up for a poor shooting performance came at the free throw line where the Mustangs shot 31 attempts.
However, the team sank just 15 of those shots from the charity stripe.
“Even with all the mistakes that we had, if we hit 75 percent of our free throws, it’s a tie ball game,” Applegate said. “There are some bright spots but they were very dim tonight.”
Despite their offensive woes, the Mustangs remained competitive with the Bulldogs throughout the night.
At several points in the game, Iola was within just one point of Anderson County and could have taken the lead if it was able to knock down some key shots.
The Mustangs’ best chance to make a run came late in the first half when the Bulldogs went cold from the floor for a short period of time. But after Anderson County went into the locker room at the break with a 4-point lead, it would never look back.
The Bulldogs went up by as much as 17 points before the Mustangs were able to chip away to close the game at 63-52.
This week marked the first time in this early season that Iola had to play in back-to-back days and three games in five days, which may have been the cause of its sloppiness on offense.
Applegate, who is in his first year with Iola, stressed that his team won’t get any better without practice and the lack of practice in between contests this tournament week may have contributed to the team’s struggles.
“We haven’t had much practice this week and we’ve got to have practice,” Applegate said. “We’ll get better. We just need practice time.”
When asked what needed to be addressed in practice in order to fix mistakes found from Friday night’s loss, Applegate was clear that his team needed to make some fundamental changes.
“We’re going to gain their attention,” Applegate said. “We’ll get their attention.”
Iola will travel to play Central Heights on Tuesday before wrapping up the 2015 calendar year with a home matchup with Erie on Thursday night.
STATS
Ethan Holloway — 1-for-5, 2-for-4 FT, 4 pts.
Isaiah Fawson — 6-for-12, 3-for-5 FT, 1-for-6 3-pointers, 16 pts.
Chase Regehr — 1-for-9, 2-for-6 FT, 4 pts.
Ben Cooper — 1-for-8, 6-for-10 FT, 0-for-4 3-pointers, 8 pts.
Brett Taylor — 1-for-2, 1-for-3 FT, 3 pts.
Evan Sigg — 3-for-4, 3-for-6 FT, 9 pts.
Joey Zimmerman — 2-for-5, 3-for-6 FT, 1-for-2 3-pointers, 8 pts.
