Indians Squeak Past A Good Fairfield Team
Sr. Cole Henry makes a statement against Fairfield on Tuesday night.
Oskaloosa, Iowa – The Oskaloosa Boys Basketball team has a target on their back this season. The rankings have the Indians near the top of the heap and every team now has them circled on their calendar.
Oskaloosa Head Coach Ryan Parker spoke with Oskaloosa News’s Jamie Brockman after the Indians claimed their first victory of the season Tuesday night at home.
The Indians struggled to get past the Trojans, and the pressure they brought against the Indians. “Maybe that was the perfect thing for us,” said Parker of the struggle the team had. “I think we thought we were pretty good and tonight we showed that maybe we’re not as good as we thought we were. But you still walk away with a win, against a quality opponent.”
The Indians fielded six players against the Trojans, and Parker said that with Fairfield’s height, with 5 kids over 6’2″, it would have made for some bad match-ups. “How do you put 2 kids who are 5’9″ on the floor at the same time?”
The Indians showed some spark on offense, but many times struggled to get going. “Sometimes I think in practice things are too easy,” added Parker. “That’s part of our struggle, to see that high-quality opponent every night like that.”
The Indians were down 14-8 after the first quarter, but outscored the Trojans by 1 point in the second quarter, heading into the break down 25-20.
Parker said he assured his team they were fine, just needed to clean a few things up. ‘We felt like we were fine. Even gave up a 3 at the buzzer.”
“All in all, we’ve got a lot of stuff to work on, but guess what, we’ve got film of it, and now we can show guys where they have to get better,’ added Parker.
Sr. Rian Yates, Sr. Cole Henry, and Jr. Xavier Foster all had 11 points, while Noah Van Veldhuizen (Jr) had 5 points and Iszac Schultz (Jr.) had 4 points in the win over Fairfield.
Tristian Waugh (Sr) had 14 points against the Indians, while teammate Austin Simpson (Sr) added 11 points.
On the boards for the Indians, Henry had 11 total rebounds and a blocked shot. Foster had 10 total rebounds and 5 blocked shots. Yates added 6 rebounds to the effort.
The Indians took the lead late in the game, winning over a quality Fairfield program 42-40.
The Indians will travel to Grinnell on Friday night as conference play gets started.
Make sure to follow the action live as Oskaloosa News will be broadcasting the audio play-by-play live on our website throughout the season.
