NEODESHA The Iola boys arent going to win any beauty contests with how they play, but as long as wins keep coming in, head coach Luke Bycroft is more than content with that.
The Mustangs made it two-straight Monday night with a 66-57 win over a Cherryvale team that had lost just one game coming into the night.
Iola improves to 5-4 overall after the win and advances on to play a tough, veteran-laden 9-1 Yates Center squad.
Things were neck-and-neck nearly all night until Bycroft decided to turn up the defensive pressure in the fourth quarter and use the Mustang press to force Cherryvale into turnovers.
I told the guys up front that I wanted to press but I didnt know when, Bycroft said. You dont want to do it too early because then teams have more time to figure it out but I also normally dont want to wait as long as I did because our guys were exhausted by that point. But I thought it was the right time and we jumped in it and it sure made a big difference for us. The boys did a good job at the outset of being active, getting the turnovers and then scoring off those turnovers.
A one-point deficit to start the quarter turned quickly into a nine-point lead by the time all was said and done.
What we did really well was run the floor in transition and get easy buckets, Bycroft said. Thats what I told them after the first half was if we rebounded a little better, wed be able to turn that into easy buckets.
Iola came out hot to start the game but so did Cherryvale. Both teams went up and down the court scoring for the first five minutes, leaving Iola with a three-point lead at the end of the quarter.
Shots, both easy and hard, stopped falling for the Mustangs after that and a 7-0 Cherryvale run to start the quarter gave the Chargers a four-point advantage. Iola managed to tie things up again but soon after, a 5-0 run left the Mustangs behind.
It wasnt until the very end of the half where Iola took the lead, hitting its final two shots including a running lay-up by junior Cal Leonard at the buzzer to take a 31-30 lead.
We hit some good shots but we missed a ton of easy shots, Bycroft said. And a lot of those shots couldve expanded our lead. And when Cherryvale needed a big shot they hit one. They came aggressively at us which wasnt what we saw on film from them. Our guys go to a summer camp with them down in Joplin so I think there was a little fire there to go and get this win.
After a fairly uneventful third quarter left Iola behind again, it was up to the Mustangs to punch back to get that final push to win the game.
It was perseverance from us more than anything, Bycroft said. Were starting to turn a corner with our mindset. Were moving on to the next play and were winning the next play. Its all of the stuff weve been talking about all season and theyre starting to do it now.
Leonard led the way with 17 followed by senior Derek Bycroft who had 14 points.
Senior Hunter Preston came in after that with a strong 10 points including six down the stretch in the fourth quarter. Preston has struggled to find a place in Iolas mostly guard-oriented offense but the lanky senior was able to assert his will down low on Friday in the winning effort.
He got a charge early after he tried to bull someone over and I told him that he didnt have to do that because he was bigger than all of their guys. All he needs to do is just turn, face the basket and shoot, Bycroft said.
