NEODESHA It may have been luck that won the day for the Iola girls Monday night in the opening round of the Wilson County Classic at Neodesha High School, but it was the Fillies brand of toughness and effort that made it possible for luck to happen.
The Iola girls defeated Cherryvale 47-46 despite the Lady Chargers having multiple opportunities late in the ball game to take the lead.
The win moves the Fillies to 5-4 this season and advances them to face 10th-ranked in 2A Leon-Bluestem Lady Lions today at 8:30 p.m.
There was a lot of fight tonight, head coach Becky Carlson said. Our subs may not have scored much but they came out and did what we needed them to do which was big.
Senior Ellie Carson topped off what was a stellar fourth quarter with a lay-up to put the Fillies up four points with 21 seconds left to play.
The senior had eight points in the fourth quarter alone in addition to eight scored earlier in the game for a game-high 16 points.
She was big down low and she was big getting after the ball, Carlson said. The other senior who was big for us in the second half was (Piper Moore). She just did a really good job slowing us down. She made some really good passes.
Cherryvale scored quickly and then managed to steal a Filly inbounds pass with the hopes of tying things up and sending it to overtime.
The Lady Chargers got two looks at a lay-up but missed both before a foul from senior Madisyn Holloway sent them to the free throw line with 5.3 seconds to play for a shot at tying it all up.
Cherryvale sunk the first but the second was off to the right and the Fillies secured the rebound and the win.
The game was back-and-forth nearly all night but it was Cherryvale who managed to get the largest lead of the evening early as a pesky press slowed Iola early and allowed the Lady Chargers to jump out to a 13-6 lead.
Iola fought back and retook the lead with 30 seconds to play in the quarter as Cherryvale started to back off their press after fouls continued to mount.
We werent going to meet our passes so they werent calling as many fouls, Carlson said. Once we started doing that, then I felt like that the game changed around a little bit.
After the Fillies controlled the second and third quarter, Cherryvale took a four-point lead thanks to an early 6-0 run.
But the Fillies, led by Carson, fought back and managed to get things back within a possession in the the final minutes.
