A slog, a barn burner, sloppy, grind-it-out, ugly.
Above are just a few words and phrases that could describe the Mustangs game versus Osawatomie Friday night.
The other word. A win.
Iola came out of winter break and got themselves a 47-44 victory over Osawatomie in a game where the Mustangs had to earn almost every point.
“They came to play and they played physical,” head coach Luke Bycroft said. “Partially it was so physical because that’s how the game was called, especially in the first half. In the second half it got called a little tighter so that went away a little bit but in a tight game it’s always going to be physical.”
With a minute and 29 seconds left to play, the Mustangs led by four and were in position to put away what was a grueling game versus a Trojan team that they had beaten by 17 a month ago.
However, these were much different circumstances.
Over break, not only did the Mustangs lose two starting guards (junior Derek Bycroft and senior Cale Barnhart) to injury, they also lost senior Matt Miller who was one of their top reserves and the first post player off the bench for Iola.
With the two guards out for at least the next several weeks, Bycroft knew that Osawatomie’s pressure would be even more of a concern.
“We assumed that they were going to press and Derek and Cale are both very big parts of us handling pressure,” Bycroft said. “We had to put guys that were really only used to handling pressure a couple minutes at a time in for the whole game. We survived it. We may not have ran our press break right or handled the pressure well but we got better as the game went along. They fought through it.”
With a minute and 14 seconds left, the Trojans hit a three and just like that it’s a one-point game.
30 seconds later, Osawatomie’s Noah Cole —who had been stellar all evening and led his team with 17 points — had an opportunity to put the Trojans in front with a couple of free throws.
Both bounced around and out and the one-point game stood.
On the next possession, Iola had an opportunity to make it a three-point game again from the free throw line but senior Isaac Vink missed the front end of a one-and-one and the Trojans had the opportunity to take the lead once again with 28 seconds left.
Twice the Trojans turned the ball over in 10 seconds and with 9.9 left in the game, junior Blake Ashmore went to the line to put the game away. Both free throws went in and all the Mustangs were back ahead by three.
A Trojan 3-pointer missed and it was over. The battered Mustangs survived the day.
