When the other team hits 13 threes, its not your night.
The Iola boys learned this firsthand Friday night when longtime rival Chanute came to town and gave them a Winter Homecoming waxing, beating the Mustangs 83-52.
They shot the ball extremely well tonight, head coach Luke Bycroft said. And some of them were tough shots. I talked to their coach after the game and he said theyve shot pretty well this season but nothing like that. At that point, theres not a lot you can do when a team is playing that well.
The loss moves Iola back to .500 at 6-6.
Even thought Bycroft knew his guys would take the loss hard, especially on a special night like Homecoming, there was one thing that he wanted to be perfectly clear about. I told them that I wouldnt trade anyone off that Chanute team for anyone on our team, Bycroft said. I wouldnt want to go to battle with anyone else aside from the boys that I have in the locker room. That being said, weve got to continue to improve and do better.
The Blue Comets jumped out to a 13-3 lead and never looked back.
Try as the Mustangs might, there was no stopping Chanutes lethal combination of seniors Corbett Kimberlin and Nate Audiss. The pair scored 25 and 20, respectively, and drained 11 of the Blue Comets threes.
When teams are shooting it that well, it makes it even more important to make sure that we rebound when they miss, Bycroft said. Im not saying that if we even doubled our rebounds that the result of the game would be different, but we wouldve given ourselves a chance.
While Iolas offense lagged, it wasnt completely beat. Junior Cal Leonard continued to show off his hot shooting with 16 points, coming from both in the paint and behind the arc.
We knew that if they played man, wed be able to open up some shots for Cal, Bycroft said. We attacked early and then we got him some inside-out looks. He also hit some tough shots, which helped to open some things up.
The lead stretched to 20 in the second quarter and with 4:06 to play in the game, Chanutes lead eclipsed 30 to trigger the running clock.
The Mustangs will readjust over the weekend before they head back into Pioneer League play on Tuesday with a trip to undefeated Santa Fe Trail.
Its over. Weve got to move on, Bycroft said. We need to do a better job rebounding the ball and we need to do a better job finishing some shots. But Tuesday is a new game and its a big opportunity for a huge league win. Weve just got to eat it now and move on.
Iola (11-18-14-952) (2pt/3pt-FT-F-TP) Leonard 1./4-2-0-16, Bycroft 4/0-1-3-9, Rogers 3/0-2-3-8, Regehr 3/0-1-2-7, Delich 2/0-0-0-4, Preston 2/0-0-2-4, Ashmore 1/0-0-0-2, Cole 0/0-2-0-2. TOTALS 16/4-8-10-52.
Chanute (23-20-23-17-83) (2pt/3pt-FT-F-TP) Kimberlin 1/7-2-0-25, Audiss 4/4-0-2-20, Bowman 4/0-5-1-13, Manbeck 2/2-0-3-10, Frederick 3/0-0-2-6, Aylward 2/0-0-3-4, Peavy 1/0-1-0-3, Brown 1/0-0-1-2. TOTALS: 18/13-8-12-83.
