A short-handed Iola High boys team came out sluggish against St. Mary’s, and were unable to find open shots early in a 57-37 loss Tuesday to Pittsburg-St. Mary’s Colgan.
Missing Tyler Boeken, their key cog in offense with his size and physicality, the Mustangs suffered.
Sam Fager got the Mustangs on the board, scoring four points in the first quarter.
St. Mary’s forced the Mustangs to take shots from outside and used their size to get rebounds, often turning them into points.
Travis Wanker stepped up in the second quarter to spark the Mustangs with four points. Iola hung around early, but faded as the half came to a close. The Mustangs trailed 37-19 at the half.A surge to begin the second half went in St. Mary’s favor as they almost completely shut down Iola’s offense, allowing only six points.
Iola’s defense was solid, but was no match for St. Mary’s pace as they went up and down the court. Iola was plagued by turnovers all night, giving the ball to St. Mary’s 23 times.
Iola heated up toward the end of the game, getting more players involved in the offense and taking advantage of trips to the free throw line. Iola made five of their six free throws in the fourth but it wasn’t enough. St. Mary’s had pulled away by that point.
“We did a decent job of protecting the paint but they hit some outside shots early to build a lead,” said Iola head coach Luke Bycroft. “We scraped back in the game but we couldn’t take care of the ball. When you have fewer rebounds than turnovers you aren’t going to win many games. We need to play through those things. We threw a lot of passes away.
Iola’s JV boys lost 53-41. Casey Rowe led the way with seven points. Gage Skahan and Cortland Carson scored five. Japheth Rutoh and Cody Wille scored four. Eli Adams and Ashton Heese scored two. Ben Kerr scored one.
The Mustangs are back in action on Friday when they host Osawatomie.
Iola (10-9-6-12-37) (FG/3pt) Weide 4-2-2-10 Adams 1-0-3-2 Fager 3-0-4-6 Riley 2-0-0-4 Maier 1-1-4-3 Leonard 3-0-1-6 Morrison 1-0-3-2 Skahan 0-2-0-2 Totals: 16/0-5-19-57
St. Mary’s Colgan (24-13-13-7-57) (FG/3pt) Harrell 4/2-2-1-12 Schremmer 1-0-1-2 Fleming 1/1-0-2-3 O’Brien 3-1-17 Van Becelaere 6/2-6-1-20 Voss 2-0-2-2 Ispm 5-1-2-11 Totals: 16/5-10-15-57
