CHANUTE — The marksmanship of Chanute High’s Jordan Duncan spoiled Iola High’s chances at its most impressive victory of the season Friday.
The Mustangs had seized the upper hand of its showdown with Chanute late in the third quarter, pushing ahead to a 43-35 lead, and leaving much of the Blue Comet gymnasium watching in nervous silence.
But Duncan changed all that down the stretch, hitting four times from 3-point range in the fourth quarter, including his bomb with 5 ½ minutes left to give the Blue Comets the lead for good in a 64-58 victory.
“I told the guys in the locker room, ‘Don’t ever be comfortable losing,’” Iola head coach Luke Bycroft said.
“Don’t ever accept losing,” he continued. “But be proud of what we did to be in this game. Chanute’s a good basketball team. That’s one of the best two or three teams we’ve played this year, and we were right in the middle of it.”
The loss, Iola’s third in a row, drops the Mustangs to 8-7 overall, but also shows the potential Iola can have as the season hits the home stretch, Bycroft said.
“We had our two best practices of the year the last two days, and that was coming off of two tough losses,” Bycroft noted. “We challenged the guys and really got after them, and it showed in the way they competed with each other. We had a much better effort from beginning to end.
“We’ve gotta keep that same mentality moving forward,” he continued. “If we can continue doing that, we’ll be who we need to be at the end of the season.”
Friday’s game was nip and tuck through the first half.
Chanute jumped out quickly, with a 9-2 run late in the first quarter to lead, 16-7.
But Iola responded in the second quarter. Mac Leonard’s driving layup knotted the score at 19-19. Lucas Maier and Grady Dougherty added buckets on Iola’s next two possessions to wrap up the Mustangs’ 16-4 run.
Chanute bounced back, scoring five straight points until Landon Weide’s driving layup at the buzzer sent the teams into the locker room knotted at 25-25.
Iola’s Cortland Carson took over in the third quarter, scoring the first seven points to give Iola a 32-25 lead.
Chanute responded with a wallop, scoring 10 straight points to lead 35-32.
But Iola clamped down on defense over the next two minutes.
Weide’s 3-point play with 2:20 left in the quarter tied the score at 35 apiece. Carson followed with a layup and jumper before Weide got loose inside of another bucket.
