The Iola boys met a rough end to a season that was originally meant for much more Friday night when the Mustangs fell in the 4A-II Sub-State semifinals to host Frontenac 61-43.
The Mustangs kept it within single digits for most of the game but couldn’t stop the Raiders from slipping away late.
“We rebounded well and that’s about the end of the good stuff,” head coach Luke Bycroft said. “We didn’t take care of the ball, we didn’t shoot the ball well, we didn’t stop the ball on the way to the basket. We picked a really bad time to have our worst shooting night of the year.”
The Mustangs shot 4-21 from beyond the arc and 11-33 inside for a dismal 28 percent shooting percentage.
Frontenac wasn’t much better, though, and the Raiders lead only crossed into double-digits once in the third quarter and throughout the fourth.
Midway through the third, a Frontenac player got whistled for a technical for talking a little too much and the Mustangs had the opportunity to cut it to a single possession. Sophomore Cal Leonard, who ended up leading Iola with 13 points, missed the front end of the free throws and the Mustangs failed to score when they got the ball under their hoop afterward.
It seemed to be just that for most of the night, Iola would find a way to get to a point not to where they were back in it necessarily, but to a point where a play or two would get them in it and it was in those moments where the bucket never went in or the stop was never made.
“Our boys played hard,” Bycroft said. “We tried to dig our way back in but we just couldn’t make shots. That combined with some silly turnovers in bad spots and shooting it poorly from the free throw line continued to hold us back no matter how hard we tried.”
The Raiders pushed their lead to as much as 14 in the final minutes of the game but back-to-back threes from senior Isaac Vink and junior Blake Ashmore got the Mustangs back within 10 with a minute to play.
They were unable to get closer. Frontenac hit its free throws late and clamped down on the Mustangs enough to keep them from continuing their run.
The loss drops Iola to 10-11 on a year that started with very lofty expectations. The Mustangs entered the Kansas Basketball Coaches Association rankings at No. 7 to start the year but the inconsistent play and then a rash over injuries over Christmas break hindered this team from reaching its full potential.
“This game looked a lot like our struggles this year,” Bycroft said. “There was some good and bad. We fought and we clawed but we just couldn’t get over the hump because we couldn’t do enough things right. You could see the pattern of this season in tonight’s game, for sure.”
The Mustangs lose six seniors to graduation including four starters led by their core down low in Ethan Holloway and Evan Sigg who led the Mustangs in scoring throughout the season. Sigg was a victim of the Mustangs’ poor shooting night and Holloway got into foul trouble early in the game and wasn’t able to recover.
“After the game, I told them that if they attack life in the same way that they did tonight with the effort that they pulled in, then they will be able to find success,” Bycroft said. “I believe that this group of boys has given that kind of effort to this team. When we got knocked down, we got up and pushed forward and that’s the life lesson to learn from this.”
The Mustangs return one starter in point guard Derek Bycroft and a good group of sophomores and juniors to go along with a freshman class that lost only two games this season.
