LA CYGNE — A slew of Iola miscues allowed the Prairie View Buffalos to snap the Mustangs’ three-game winning streak in a 45-44 loss Tuesday.
After falling to Prairie View (11-4, 6-4) before the Christmas break 49-35, Iola (10-8, 5-5) gave the Buffalos a battle in Tuesday’s dogfight.
“They were fighting the whole game, we just had a few breakdowns defensively in the fourth quarter,” Iola coach Kelsey Johnson said. “We knew [Kally Stroup, senior guard] was their best player. We let her shoot too many threes that were open at the end. It was just little breakdowns like that in close-game situations and how we were going to react.”
With a 50-50 mix of close-range and perimeter shooting, the Mustangs and Buffalos traded blow for blow to open Tuesday’s Pioneer League showdown. Senior guard Harper Desmarteau provided much of the early-game fireworks with a pair of 3-pointers. She ended the night as Iola’s leading scorer with all but one of her 16 points coming from behind the arc.
Sophomore forward Zoie Hesse provided Iola an option in the paint, and accounted for all but one of Iola’s first-half field goals while finishing second in scoring with 11 points.
With Hesse and Desmarteau providing Iola with a 1-2 combination, the Mustangs went into halftime tied 18-18. Both teams traded basket for basket with such ferocity that Prairie View guard Ryleigh Lueker, caught in the fervor of the moment, took an inbound pass and shot it into Iola’s basket – adding 2 points to Iola’s score. Similar to a boxer having his or her bell rung, that’s when Prairie View’s Stroup came alive. She netted more than half of her team-leading 22 points in the fourth quarter.
A Desmarteau 3-pointer with less than a minute left in regulation pulled Iola within a point, but the Mustangs came up a free-throw short of forcing overtime, and ultimately fell 45-44. Although taking the loss, and dropping out of the top three in the Pioneer League standings, Coach Johnson said she feels good about her team moving forward.
“We had the girls in the right spots, it just wasn’t our night to finish it,” Johnson said.
The Mustangs head on the road Friday for a Valentine’s Day game against Anderson County (2-11, 1-6). Iola previously defeated the Bulldogs 40-19 in the season opener, but Coach Johnson said both teams are much different than their season-opener counterparts. For Iola, Johnson said their focus will be consistency.
“We played basketball for three quarters [Tuesday],” Johnson said. “We didn’t start out great, and we had a breakdown in the fourth quarter. I just want to put four quarters together on Friday.”
Iola (9-9-15-11—44)
FG/3pt FT F TP
Holloway 0/1 0 0 3
Bycroft 0 0 2 0
Clift 0 3 0 3
Mader 0 0 1 0
