In nearly every game, the Mustangs’ depth and ability to have three or four different players lead them in scoring will be a huge advantage. In Tuesday’s 64-61 loss to Burlington though, Wildcats’ star Brogan Nordstedt proved too much for the Mustangs to overcome.
After Iola junior forward Ethan Holloway tied the game at 61-61 on a put-back shot with just 18 seconds left, Nordstedt wasted little time and raced to ball up the floor, before pulling up for what became the game-winning jump shot with 8 seconds left.
The basket gave Nordstedt his 25th and 26th points of the night.
After the basket, Burlington — who only had committed two fouls in the second half to that point — fouled the Mustangs twice after inbounding the ball to run four seconds off the clock. Iola coach Jay Applegate called time out with 4 seconds left to draw up a play.
Inbounding the ball from mid-court, Applegate knew that the Mustangs could not afford to get fouled again and run the clock down further without getting a shot up.
The Mustangs lobbed a pass towards Holloway to try to get him in position to score before Burlington could commit the foul.
The pass fell short however and Burlington junior Garrison Fiedler intercepted the pass before Holloway had a chance to even fight for the ball.
“We didn’t the curl to the basket like we wanted and we didn’t get the pass there like we wanted,” Applegate said. “That didn’t pan out.”
Fiedler was quickly fouled by Holloway and hit the first free throw to stretch the lead to three points. One more free throw would completely seal the game.
The second free throw bounced out, but in the most fitting fashion possible, the 5-8 Nordstedt jetted in and grabbed the offensive rebound. The Burlington senior dribbled out the clock before any Mustang could foul him and prolong the game.
“If you were a fan, that was a great game to watch,” Applegate said. “It would have been a little bit better if we would have had three or four more points though.”
The game was tight throughout with Iola junior forward Evan Sigg getting involved early with four of the Mustangs’ first six points.
“I need to get our bigs working better together,” Applegate said. “They haven’t progressed the way I want our post players to progress in there. We had flashes and we are getting better… We need that inside game, we really haven’t established that.”
A pair of Isaiah Fawson three-pointers and a Joey Zimmerman basket gave the Mustangs a slim 16-15 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Holloway and Ben Cooper had back-to-back baskets to push the lead to 20-15 in the opening moments of the second quarter.
The Wildcats quickly fought back and took a 22-21 lead on a Jace Watkins triple and for the remainder of the half, the two teams primarily swapped one-point advantages before going to the locker room with Iola holding a 33-32 lead.
