Lauren Blake scored 26 second half points to lead the Indianola girls basketball squad from 16 points down to an upset victory over Grinnell Friday evening 64-61, while the boys dominated to earn their second straight 35-plus point victory this week with a 75-40 win. The Indians girls played tough through the first quarter, trailing just 21-20 against the #11 in class 4A Tigers, but the second quarter found the Indians down big. Grinnell went on a 18-3 run to take a 39-23 lead, before the Indians began to cut into the deficit leading to 39-31 halftime score. Sophomore Lauren Blake took over for the Indians in the third, scoring all but four points in the quarter for the squad including four shots from beyond the arc, and brought the Indians to back within five 55-50 going into the final eight minutes. Blake continued her rampage through the Tigers defense in the fourth, scoring another 11 points in the quarter to bring the Indians to a tie game with just seconds remaining, when junior Kendall Clatt hit the go-ahead three pointer with just six seconds remaining to put the Indians up for good. Head coach Jeff Janssen tells KNIA Sports despite the early deficit his squad never lost faith.

“If you looked down at our bench, our girls focus, our girls heads never went down, they never started making excuses or getting after each other. We knew that they were capable of coming back, and we also knew we had so many easy shots that if we had made some in that second quarter it would have been a whole different story. Grinnell made three three’s in the second quarter and two in the first quarter, and seven for the game, so for a team that averages 36 attempts from beyond the arc per game we were pretty happy to cut that lead to eight at halftime.”

Blake scored 32 in the contest, with Clatt putting up 15. The Indians boys proved to be too much for the Grinnell squad to handle, blowing out the Tigers from start to finish. Indianola held a 29-14 lead after the first, and a 46-30 lead at the half, and then outscored the Tigers 21-6 in the third to put the game away for good. Tyce Johnson scored 24 to lead the Indians, while Caden Rehmeier dropped 15. The girls are now 12-6 on the season and sit just a game back of Grinnell in the Little Hawkeye Conference at 9-2, while the boys are 14-3 and 9-2. Both squads will next play Tuesday hosting Oskaloosa.