The Indianola boys and girls basketball, Impulse Dance Team, and cheerleading seniors were all honored Friday night as the basketball squads swept Oskaloosa, the boys winning 73-50 and the girls 58-34 as heard live on 94.3 KNIA.
The #10 in class 4A boys faced several periods where the shots were not falling for them, but still managed to hold Osky on the defensive end, leading 15-5 at the end of the first and 36-18 at the halftime break. Indianola built a lead as high as 25 in the third quarter, but a late Osky run would cut the lead down to 10 in the fourth before Indianola shut the door and started to find their stroke again from outside. Head coach Jeff Ebling tells KNIA Sports the vision from his team has improved, getting guys easy buckets.
“You might not think you are going to get the pass, and then the pass is there. We usually tell them to have your hands up, expect it, and if you don‘t get it that’s fine. You always have to be ready for those passes. If we do that, we are awfully tough to beat, because if you help on that cutter you are leaving our outside shooter open and if you stay on the outside shooter the cutter is wide open. We just continue to work on that and remind them in practice, live segments and drills and to look for those cuts, and they do a good job of implementing them on game night.”
Drew Kingery led the team with 19 points, while Brady Blake scored 15 starting for the injured Charlie Wilmott.
The #4 Indians girls were also ice-cold from outside for the majority of the contest, but still earned leads at the end of the first and halftime 15-9 and 29-19 respectively, with Lauren Blake scoring 14 first half points. Osky refused to go away throughout the third quarter, cutting the deficit down to eight points at 38-30, but Indianola outscored Osky in the fourth quarter 20-4 to earn the blowout win. Blake ended with 28 points to lead all scorers.
The boys improve to 11-4 and 9-3 in LHC play, while the girls are 14-4 and 10-2. The boys don’t have much downtime, traveling to DM Lincoln for a non-conference bout.