Legendary Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Chuck Noll once said, “I would rather play well and lose than play poorly and win.”
While Iola head coach Luke Bycroft might see where the NFL Hall of Famer is coming from, he still won’t hesitate to accept the Mustangs’ 48-36 win over Prairie View
The frustration starts with the Mustangs first-half effort, allowing the Buffalos to stick around after taking an early 16-9 lead. They held that seven-point lead into the half but that’s when Prairie View made its move, outscoring the Mustangs 9-1 to take a 26-25 lead.
“We’re still not taking care of the ball,” Bycroft said. “We had 16 turnovers tonight and all they did was play a 2-3 zone. They didn’t even challenge us in the full court. We’ve got to clean that up”
Bycroft saw flashes of last week’s loss the Burlington and feared complacency had once again taken hold over his team.
“It felt that way,” Bycroft said. “Sometimes I can say that as an easy answer and I may need to go watch the film before I say it for sure but it feels that way. Just like the other night against Burlington, I feel like we said to ourselves, ‘OK, good enough. We’ve got this one.’”
But then a switch flipped.
Junior guard Kane Rogers — who scored nine points and four rebounds including a team-high three offensive boards — got two hustle layups and almost got a third but after rebounding his miss he kicked it out to junior Blake Ashmore who hit a 3 to put Iola up six in what seemed like no time at all.
“Kane will always do the consistent dirty work,” Bycroft said. “He’s not the flashy guy. He’s an exceptional rebounder. He’ll do it on both ends of the floor. He’s just a very smart player. He’s just so solid in the way he plays and the way he takes advantage of what’s there.”
Sophomore guard Cal Leonard came in and banged in a 3 and just like that the third quarter ended not with Iola struggling to hold on but with the Mustangs well on their way to a blowout as Iola outscored the Buffalos 15-3 in that stretch.
“He gave us a huge spark,” Bycroft said of Leonard. “He jumped in the passing lane and got a few runouts. He missed a few shots but he gave us some energy.”
From there both teams were fairly quiet, only scoring a handful of points with Iola not extending its lead but holding strong as time clicked down to secure the Mustangs’ first league win of the year (even though they already defeated two Pioneer League foes in their preseason tournament.)
Senior Ethan Holloway led the way for Iola, scoring 13 points.
The ninth-ranked Mustangs move to 4-1 and 1-1 so far this season and will face their second top 10 team in eight-days as the undefeated 10th ranked Trojans come to town to close out the semester.
Iola (16-8-16-8) (2pt/3pt-FT-F-TP) Holloway 6/0-1-1-13, Rogers 4/0-1-0-9, Sigg 4/0-0-1-8, Leonard 1/1-0-0-5, Bycroft 2/0-0-3-4, Ashmore 0/1-0-1-3, Cokely 1/0-0-0-2, Barnhart 1/0-0-1-2, Vink 1/0-0-0-2, Regehr 0/0-0-1-0. TOTALS: 20/2-2-9-48.
