The season came to an end for the Indianola Boys Basketball team Monday night, as they fell to Des Moines Lincoln 66-58 in the Class 4A Substate 1 opener heard live on 94.3 KNIA.

The game was tightly contested early, with the Railsplitters grabbing the early 15-11 advantage at the end of first quarter. The Indians slightly cut into that deficit in the second quarter, outscoring Lincoln 14-13 to pull within 28-25 at halftime. Out of the break, the Railsplitters offense heated up, as they shot 57% from the field to extend their lead to 49-42 heading into the final eight minutes of play. Indianola didn’t go away easily, cutting Lincoln’s lead down to as few as four points multiple times in the fourth quarter, but couldn’t pull any closer as their season ended with the eight-point loss. George Blake led the Indians offensively in the contest with 21 points, while Andrew DeWall and Easton McGraw added 13 and 10 points respectively. Despite the ball not bouncing their way Monday night, Indians head coach Jeff Ebling said he was thrilled with his team’s effort in the game.

“I thought we did a great job, especially attacking them inside early and we just had some looks that were just not falling down which was frustrating. You get right where you want and it just wasn’t happening and we kind of struggled with free throws a little bit and it just kind of got away from us. But the effort by the boys was outstanding, we just came out on the short end tonight. These guys should be proud of what they accomplished, from last year going 2-20 to this year going 7-15, these seniors had a lot to do with that and I’m just proud of all of our guys.”

The Indianola boys end the season with a 7-15 overall record, and will graduate six seniors from the program.