GARNETT — Sluggish starts doomed Iola High’s chances to come out on top against opponents Anderson County and Prairie View Tuesday night.
Iola lost to Prairie View, 2-0 and Anderson County, 2-0.
Prairie View won the first set 25-12 and the second set 25-11 to sweep Iola.
Rio Lohman and Jackie Fager each had three kills. Kaysin Crusinbery had eight assists to go with nine digs. Chloe Sell had 12 digs.
Against Anderson County, Iola lost the first set 25-14 after rallying to within two points. The second set was Iola’s best performance of the night, overcoming a 5-0 deficit to tie the set at 6-6. Both teams exchanged the lead with the set tied 23-23 late. Anderson County pulled away to win the set 25-23 and sweep Iola.
Crusinbery scored eight points with seven assists against Anderson County.
Jenna Curry led the Mustangs going 6/6 on serves with four digs. Aysha Houk had 13 digs.
“We finished better than we started,” said Iola head coach Amanda Holman on Iola’s improvement throughout the night.
“We are just trying to prepare the girls for seasons to come and build from there. We don’t want to backtrack. We want to set ourselves up for the future.”
The immediate future for Iola is Saturday when the girls will be in Labette County for the 4A sub-state tournament. The Mustangs will be in a play-in game against Topeka-Hayden. The winner of that game will face Labette County, the top seed in the bracket.
