indianola-8

The #11 in 4A Indianola boys basketball team blew out #1 in 3A Dallas Center-Grimes Mustangs 79-49 at home Friday evening, while the #5 Indianola girls couldn’t handle the defense from #2 DCG as they fell 48-26 in a doubleheader heard live on 94.3 KNIA.

The Indians boys took several minutes to get the offense going against the Mustangs, but earned a 17-13 lead at the end of the first, then blew the game wide open in the second hitting four three-point buckets as well as a buzzer-beating steal and dunk by Drew Kingery to lead 39-21.

The Indians continued to pour it on in the third quarter, holding the high-flying Mustangs to just 10 points while dropping another four three-pointers, and coasted to victory in the fourth. Head coach Jeff Ebling tells KNIA Sports his team came out the right away and got started early.

“Everyone did their part. We talked about that before the game, games are won with effort and you play together, and I thought we did that from the tip. I thought we had very good energy coming out, we came out in our press. A lot of teams probably don’t press DCG very much right off the bat, but our guys like getting into that. And we mixed up our defenses coming down into that and we maybe threw them off a bit, and we got into a rhythm.”

Kingery led the Indians with 21 points, while Charlie Wilmott scored 17.

The Indians girls jumped out to an early 6-2 lead against the Mustangs, but that would be the only point in the game the Indians were close with DCG, as they went scoreless the rest of the quarter to trail 7-6 after the first, and 21-14 at halftime. The Mustangs took over in the third, holding the Indians to just three points and scored 14 themselves to take full control, and emptied the bench in the fourth.

The boys win puts them a game back of DCG in the conference race at 7-3 and 9-4 overall, while the girls are now in a tie for second with Grinnell at 8-2 in the conference and 12-4 overall. Both teams travel to Grinnell on Tuesday.