The Iola High School girls and boys basketball teams got one last chance to shake the rust off on Tuesday when IHS hosted the Gatorade scrimmage. The girls played two games against each other, switching up teams between games. The second game pitted the junior varsity against the varsity. The varsity girls won 34-13. “I saw a lot of good things tonight,” said IHS head coach Kelsey Johnson. “We came out playing aggressively. I don’t always think girls are confident shooting the ball, but tonight we didn’t shy away from shooting, which is a good thing.” The scrimmage was a good chance to see which aspect of the game IHS needs to work on, and which might be a strength. “Our fast break looks really good,” Johnson remarked. “We aren’t always good when we set up half-court offense. We are going to work on setting that up in practice the next couple of days.” There are reasons for encouragement heading into the season. “We are fast and our girls are good,” Johnson said. “Our point guards are good at pushing the ball and seeing passes. That’s where it starts. Our post players aren’t super tall but they can outrun anybody they are against.” The boys portion of the scrimmage was a bit different. Teams were mixed for both games. The stats weren’t kept. It was all about improvement for the Mustangs. “I learned we are in decent shape,” said IHS head coach Luke Bycroft. “All of our guys played a ton of minutes and got up and down the floor. I feel good about where we are, we ran our sets pretty well, but didn’t run our motion offense very well.” “We didn’t stop the ball in transition very well,” Bycroft added. “We need to be able to stop the ball in transition and keep teams from getting to the bucket.” Coming into the season opener, Bycroft is hoping to get a number of players back from injury. Those injuries forced Bycroft to pull a freshman out of the crowd for the second game. Brett Morrison, Jake Skahan, Gage Skahan, are all down for the Mustangs. “Morrison is a senior and would likely be a starter for us,” Bycroft said. “He comes back to practice tomorrow, but he has been out since last Wednesday, he was pretty stiff and took a fall in practice. Jake is out until January, so we weren’t counting on having him for the opener. Gage, his little brother, I thought I might expect a little out of him to start the season, but he will be down at least another week.” One other injury was to the star of the first scrimmage, sophomore Japheth Rutoh. Rutoh is expected to see limited varsity action this season but has some tools. “Japheth played a good game in the first scrimmage but came out with something wrong with his hip,” Bycroft said. “He tried to go for the second game but couldn’t.”
The Iola High School girls and boys basketball teams got one last chance to shake the rust off on Tuesday when IHS hosted the Gatorade scrimmage.
