BURLINGTON — In Saturday’s Register, this reporter wrote that without senior Sydney Wade in the line-up, the Fillies were without their alpha dog and that contributed to a loss against Rock Creek.
I don’t know if Iola senior Toni Macha read the paper before Saturday’s game, but she certainly played like she wanted to prove that narrative wrong in Iola’s 39-31 victory over Prairie View.
“I’m just trying to play confident and look for my teammates,” Macha said. “With Sydney out, you just have to be aggressive and take it at them.”
Macha was sensational from the first basket of the game — an ‘and-one’ play for herself — until the final Iola basket of the game — a Macha bucket to give her team a 12 point lead in the closing moments.
Macha finished with a team-high 17 points and was a match-up nightmare for the Buffalos as she had her inside game working early and that translated into her shot falling from the outside.
“I think it helped my outside shot go in after I got a few inside,” Macha said.
Iola coach Becky Carlson made sure to get her top player engaged early as they ran their ‘Four-out’ offense and allowed Macha to have all the space she needed in the middle to work her post moves.
“If we can get her one-on-one with somebody, she is going to do a great job,” Carlson said.
Macha wasn’t the only Fillies’ player who supplied her A-game on Saturday.
As a good team should do, when they lose a starter, everyone stepped their game up to another level to deliver the much-needed win.
Junior Colbi Riley and Chloe Gardner terrorized the Buffalo guards with tremendous ball-pressure the entire game and repeatedly forced turnovers.
“Chloe was all over and very aggressive,” Carlson said.
Riley Murry and Della Lohman owned the paint — at lease whenever Macha wasn’t owning it. Lohman had six points and Murry had four, but both were incredibly strong defensively against the size of Prairie View.
Murry had the defensive sequence of the game when she rejected two Buffalo shots on the same possession with blocked shots in the third quarter.
The biggest offensive revelation — other than Macha — was sophomore Madisyn Holloway. After the Buffalos began focusing on Macha, it was Holloway who hurt them with a pair of long two-point shots to keep the Fillies in rhythm. The guard finished with six points off the bench.
“I was a little nervous, but after I hit the first one I felt more comfortable,” Holloway said.
The win was definitely a relief in the Fillies’ locker room, after they were disappointed with their loss to Rock Creek on Friday.
“It felt like we won the tournament,” Macha said. “Compared to last night’s, we did a really good job.”
BOX SCORE
Iola 39,
Prairie View 31
Iola 5 9 11 14 – 39
Rock Creek 5 5 5 16 – 31
Iola (6-5)
(2pt/3pt-FTM-FTA-Points) Riley Murry 2/0-0-0-4; Colbi Riley 2/0-2-4-6; Della Lohman 3/0-0-0-6; Madisyn Holloway 3/0-0-0-6; Toni Macha 5/0-7-9-17. TOTALS: 15/0-9-13-39. FOULED OUT: Lohman.
Prairie View (0-11)
(2pt/3pt-FTM-FTA-Points) Ally Kirkpatrick 0/1-0-0-3; Grace Aust 0/1-4-5-3, Madison Kemper 2/0 -1-3-5; Shelby Weitman 1/0-2-2-4; Kenna Walker 0/3-0-0-9; Hayley Brown 1/0-1-2-3. TOTALS: 4/5-8-12-31. FOULED OUT: None.
