WELLSVILLE — To say the Iola girls started the game on the wrong foot in their 66-31 loss to Wellsville Friday night would be an understatement.
Allowing 21 unanswered points to start a ballgame is more like starting on the wrong foot, elbow, left ear and knee cap.
“Once we got the ball up the court and ran our offense we didn’t do a bad job,” head coach Becky Carlson said. “But it was just getting it up there that was the big problem.”
Wellville’s press did its job Friday night and the Fillies were sufficiently rattled. What helped the Lady Eagles so much was their was their team speed. Wellsville was able to dart around enough both offensively and defensively that it left Iola flustered.
“I tried to tell them how quick of a team Wellsville was,” Carlson said. “I don’t think they understood that and they said after the game that they didn’t realize that they’d be that quick.”
To try and counter that, Carlson went deep on her bench early to find some speed, giving minutes to girls like sophomore Elysia Kunkler, a junior varsity starter but hasn’t played a lick of varsity all year, and junior Kassy Shelby who has seen limited minutes this season.
“Those two are really quick,” Carlson said. “They’re two of my quicker girls and you could see it when we played. It was also good to give some other kids some playing time.”
Scoring was an issue for Iola; no Fillie was able to crack more than 10 points all night. Junior Ellie Carson and senior Colbi Riley each led the way with six points.
After the game, Carson was succinct as far as a plan of action heading into next week’s tournament at Burlington.
“We just need to move on,” Carson said. “Nothing we can do about this except get better.”
The Fillies, 3-5 and 2-3 in Pioneer League play, will open the tournament up versus Sabetha.
JV and Freshman results
Check back on Monday for JV and Freshman results from Friday.
Box Scores
Iola (4-7-8-11—31) (2pt/3pt-FT-F-TP) Carson 3/0-0-4-6, Riley 1/0-4-1-6, Morrison 1/1-0-3-5, Holloway 2/0-0-2-4, Moore 2/0-0-1-4, Shelby 1/0-0-1-2, Bycroft 1/0-0-0-2, Richards 0/0-2-0-2, Gardner 0/0-0-1-0, TOTALS: 11/1-6-14—31.
Wellsville (24-16-22-4—66) (2pt/3pt-FT-F-TP) Aamold 8.1-3-4-22, Dwyer 2/2-3-0-12, Showalter 4/0-3-2-11, McDaniel 3/0-1-3-9, McCoy 3/0-1-3-7, Ball 1/0-0-1-2, Livingston 1/0-0-1-2, Sanders 0/0-0-1-0, Park 0/0-0-1-0. TOTALS: 22/3-11-16-66.
