The Iola girls walked away with something to be proud of after their 40-27 loss to Sabetha on Wednesday in the opening round of the Burlington Invitational tournament.
After getting wiped off the court last Friday versus Wellsville, the Fillies came together, regrouped and put forth a solid showing versus the Bluejays but just didn’t have enough in the tank to pull off the victory.
“I was pleased with the intensity tonight,” head coach Becky Carlson said. “We did a great job of breaking the press. We moved the ball well and I thought we took a lot of good shots but the problem was we couldn’t get a lot of them to fall.”
As has been the case multiple times this season, Iola fell behind early thanks to a lack of offensive production. Sabetha’s zone was eliminating any driving lanes forcing the Fillies’ offense into stagnation.
“They have a really good zone,” Carlson said. “So we were moving the ball trying to find a good shot. I’d rather them do that than just throw stuff up. However, when they switched to man, I felt like we did a good job scoring against that.”
The Fillies had only scored a single bucket and a free throw as Sabetha was on their way to a 10-3 lead after a quarter when junior Madisyn Holloway rattled off five quick points to cut the lead to just two.
Holloway was the lone double-figure scorer for Iola, putting up 10 points.
However, a 10-5 second quarter for the Bluejays kept comeback hopes at bay. The Fillies left six points on the board in the first half thanks to missed free throws.
Coming out of the half, the Fillies had a final stab at taking the lead.
Two unanswered buckets cut the lead to just three but from there, the stagnation returned. Sabetha gave the Fillies numerous chances to take the lead before finding a rhythm and rattling off an 11-2 run to put the game out of reach.
The loss moves the Fillies to 3-6 on the season. They will move to the losers bracket and face winless Prairie View, a team that they’ve already beaten 37-35 earlier this year.
“We’re ready to play again,” Carlson said. “We’ve had a lot of practices and we’re ready to play some games. We’re just ready to step forward. We looked a lot better tonight than we did last week. That’s our goal. We need to just keep getting better.”
