Tiger girls hold off Iola rally

IOLA -- Katren Rienbolt's first and only field goal of the night with about 20 seconds remaining allowed Fort Scott High's girls to survive a late Iola rally and come away with a 44-43 victory in the first round of the Class 4A Paola Sub-State Basketball Tournament here Tuesday night.

The fifth-seeded Tigers (10-11) appeared to have a comfortable lead, 42-32, with 2:29 remaining in the contest. But the Fillies (11-10) scored 11 points in the next 1:11, 8 of those off turnovers, taking a 43-42 lead on Toni Taylor's 3-point goal with 1:18 remaining.

The Tigers committed another turnover, their fourth in a row, but the Fillies failed to capitalize on that as Kendra Taiclet missed the front end of a one-and-one free-throw opportunity with 23.6 seconds remaining. Fort Scott took the ball to the other end where Rienbolt, a freshman, hit her shot.

Iola dribbled into the front court, where it called time out with 7.3 seconds left. As the Fillies lined up to run their play, Fort Scott head coach Jeff Armstrong called his final time out.

Iola needed only a two-point goal to win but Kelsey Larson found herself open at the top of the key and launched a 3-point shot that missed as the final horn sounded.

"I was feeling so bad," Armstrong told KOMB's Ken Tourtillott in the post-game interview. "I was, 'Please don't tell me this is how it's going to end,' because these girls had earned that win."

It was Iola's first home loss of the season.

The contest started out as a defensive slugfest. The first field goal of the contest, by Iola's Carly Mulsow, didn't come until there were less than three minutes remaining in the first quarter. The Fillies led at the end of the period, 7-4, as Larson his a 3-point shot to break a tie with 28 seconds remaining.

The Fillies found themselves up 13-6 with three minutes to go. But the Tigers scored 7 of the last 9 points of the half. Jenna Harper found freshman Brianne Lawrence for a layup as the horn sounded, which brought Fort Scott with 15-13.

The Tigers also scored the first 5 points of the second half, all by the freshmen, to go up 18-15.

But Iola hit three straight 3-pointers to reclaim the lead at 24-19 with under five minutes to go.

Fort Scott fought back and reclaimed the lead, 29-27, with about two minutes to go on a 3-pointer by senior Kori Allen, the Tigers' only triple of the night compared to Iola's 7.

Kirstin McGuffin tied the score but Allen found space in the middle and scored a layup with 41 seconds to go that gave Fort Scott the lead going into the final stanza.

Allen scored the first basket of the fourth off an assist by Lawrence to cap her personal 7-point run. But Mallory Shelton stuck in a teammate's miss to make it 35-29 with 5:34 left.

Unlike the last meeting here -- a 46-36 Iola victory on February 11 -- when Fort Scott missed 13 free throws on a 10-of-23 night at the line, the Tigers were making their charity tosses and staying ahead of the Fillies. When Lawrence made one of two with 2:29 to go, the Tigers had made 7 of 8 in the quarter.

But that was when Iola began its rally, which started with a Taiclet 3-pointer and continued with a Mulsow triple, Taiclet taking a steal in and Taylor's trey.

But Taiclet's miss late was indicative of the Fillies' woes at the free-throw line. Iola hit on 15 of 29 free throws in the pervious meeting. On this night, they made just 4 of 14, going 2 for 8 in the second half.

With senior Megan McDermed out of the rest of the season with a broken bone in her ankle, the bulk of the scoring was handled by the freshmen. Lawrence finished with 17 points while Rienbolt had 9. Taylor and Mulsow led the Fillies with 8 points each off the bench.

The Tigers move on to face top-seeded Ottawa (16-4) at 6 p.m. Friday in the semifinal at Paola. The Cyclones bounced Anderson County, 57-25.

(5) FORT SCOTT: H.Tourtillott 1 0-0 2, M.Tourtillott 0 3-4 3, Rienbolt 1 7-8 9, Shelton 1 0-0 2, K.Allen 3 0-0 7, Campbell 2 0-0 4, Lawrence 5 7-10 17. TOTALS: 13-34 17-22 44.

(4) IOLA: Larson 3 0-2 7, Taiclet 2 2-4 7, Wilson 2 1-2 6, Callahan 1 1-4 3, McGuffin 2 0-0 4, Taylor 3 0-2 8, Mulsow 3 0-0 8, Adams 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 16-41 4-14 43.

Iola.................... 7 8 14 14 -- 43

Three-point field goals: Fort Scott 1-2 (K.Allen), Iola 7-14 (Taylor 2, Mulsow 2, Larson, Taiclet, Wilson).

Total fouls: Fort Scott 13, Iola 17. Fouled out: None. Technical fouls: None.

Rebounds: Fort Scott 31, Iola 21. Turnovers: Fort Scott 21, Iola 13.