With only 12 girls on the roster, Iola High’s coaches have had to be creative when running their practices, and have rarely been able to run full five-on-five scrimmages during practice.
So you couldn’t blame interim head coach Emily Sigg if she had a little trepidation in the run-up to Friday’s season-opener against rival Anderson County.
“We wrote out a list of goals prior to the game of things we wanted to see,” Sigg said.
Needless to say, those goals were met with flying colors.
The Mustangs were stifling on the defensive end, and effective enough offensively to take a commanding lead early and never let up in a 40-19 romp.
“One of our biggest goals was to play a full four quarters,” Sigg said. “That’s what we did.”
It helps that six of the 12 players on the roster are seniors, and all 12 have had varsity experience entering the season.
It was senior Harper Desmarteau who took over early, with a pair of back-to-back layups and a 3-pointer in the early going as Iola broke out to an 11-2 lead.
Sophomore reserve Zoie Hesse took over in the second period, scoring twice off assists from senior Reese Curry before sophomore Dally Curry drained a pair of free throws to make it 17-3.
Desmarteau added a third 3-pointer with just under 2 minutes left in the half to make it 20-5.
Iola’s offense stalled for a bit on both sides of the halftime break. The Mustangs went scoreless for nearly 6 minutes as the Bulldogs’ Addy Sommer hit a 3-pointer just before the break and Brylie Kolhmeier scored early in the third quarter to slice Iola’s lead to 20-11.
Hesse’s bucket midway through the period ended Iola’s scoring slump. Hesse added two more free throws before Elza Clift drained a 3-pointer to stretch Iola’s lead back to 27-11. Kyndal Bycroft’s steal and layup made it 29-14 at the end of the quarter.
Bycroft added two more steals in the fourth quarter, both of which directly led to layups, from Clift and Reese Curry, respectively, as Iola pulled away down the stretch.
“Our offense got a little iffy in the third quarter, but we were able to adjust,” Sigg said.
Harper’s ability to hit from outside forced Anderson County to extend its defense, which led to Iola’s ability to better get the ball inside, Sigg noted.
