Fillies plays for fifth place at Burlington
BURLINGTON — “We feed off our defense,” said Becky Carlson, Iola High Fillies’ head coach.
But it took about five minutes to get to “Fillies’ style” defense in Friday’s consolation bracket contest at the 2010 Burlington High Invitational basketball tournament. Iola fell behind Paola High’s Panthers 8-1 and it was 10-3 when Jazmyne Honeycutt scored then the Fillies woke up and put the pressure on the Panthers.
When it was all said and done, the Fillies pushed past the Panthers 51-36 to reach the fifth-place game. Iola (3-6) goes after the consolation trophy today at 3:10 against Rossville High’s Bulldogs in Burlington Middle School’s gym.
Rossville (2-8) defeated Santa Fe Trail 32-29 Friday night.
In the championship side, Topeka Hayden decked Burlington 46-27 and Sabetha beat Labette County 53-48 in the semifinals. Hayden plays Sabetha for the championship at the same time Iola is playing but in the BHS gym. The third-place game is set for noon at the high school while the seventh-place game is at the same time in the middle school.
“Once we got started, we played a pretty good game,” Carlson said. “We couldn’t put on our press until we scored and once we started hitting our shots, our defensive intensity picked up.”
Kirstin McGuffin connected on a little jump shot and it was 10-7. Kelsey Larson, who finished with a game-high 19 points, made one of her five steals of the game. Iola didn’t convert that one into points but that came later.
Honeycutt’s second bucket of the game made it 12-9 with 1:45 left. Honeycutt had back-to-back steals leading to one basket by Larson. Honeycutt had eight points, eight rebounds and four steals for the game.
It was fitting that a layup by Larson came off a steal and put Iola up 13-12. Larson nailed a three-pointer to finish a 13-2 run and a 16-12 lead.
Larson scored to bump it up two more points to open the second quarter. Paola battled back with six consecutive points to tie the game at 18-18. Kayla Callahan and Paola’s Courtney Johnson traded baskets.
McGuffin’s two free throws put Iola up for good at the 2:12 mark. Iola’s defense took over as the the first half concluded. Larson nailed another trey and Shelby Greenwood’s basket had Iola up 27-20 at intermission.
“I thought we rebounded pretty well tonight. We had 39 rebounds but again when you play the zone defense and teams shoot threes there’s going to be long rebounds. We were boxing out but have to learn how to go after the long rebounds,” Carlson said.
The Fillies, who had 15 turnovers in the game, had trouble taking care of the basketball early in the third quarter. Iola also missed a lot of close-in shots with Paola grabbing the defensive rebounds.
