Sidney – In athletic competition every now and then you find yourself going against a superior opponent, and that is what happened to the Greenville Lady Wave as they took on Sidney, the No. 6 ranked Division 1 team in the latest Associated Press Ohio polls.
Sidney would roll in this one, winning it 65-24, to remain undefeated on the year.
It was a rough start for the Wave as Sidney put up 16 points in the opening quarter with Sylvia Hudson and Celena Taborn doing damage inside, scoring 10 points.
Greenville avoided a shutout in the opening quarter when Chloe McKinney connected on a jumper just inside the arch at the 3:21 mark.
But the Lady Wave struggled against the 2-2-1 full court press and Sidney’s overall length. When they did break the press 6-foot 3-inch Celena Taborn, 6-foot 1-inch Jada Rowland and 5-foot10-inch Sylvia Hudson were waiting to contest the shot or block it as Sidney built up 16-2 lead in the first quarter.
Not much changed in the second quarter as the Yellow Jackets upped their advantage to 30-7 at the half.
“I felt like we could have come out and played a lot harder … but give Sidney credit. We were undersized at every position, and offensively they are very talented and their defense was pretty good, too,” Greenville girls basketball coach Rachel Kerns said on the start by Sidney in the game.
Greenville came out in the third quarter and showed patience in running its flex offense … that patience led to open looks, something they were unable to get in the first half.
“Truthfully we run flex a lot, and when the girls run it right we are able to get good shots. That’s what the flex is designed to do,” Kerns said.
Greenville scored 12 points in the third quarter, eight of those from sophomore Payton Brandenburg.
Sidney however answered the 12 points and upped the ante with seven more, scoring 19 in the third quarter.
If things weren’t tough enough for Greenville guarding Taborn inside, now they had to contend with her from the outside, as she stepped out beyond the arch and dropped two consecutive triples and scored 15 of her game-high 27 points in the quarter to go up 49-19.
Greenville simply was over-matched and unable to sustain the success it had in the third quarter, scoring just five points in the final stanza in dropping a 65-24 decision.
“Sidney is undefeated for a reason and has very good basketball players. I’m not sure I did the best job of preparing our kids to work real hard. Our intensity wasn’t where it could have been, and I don’t think our girls were as confident as they should have been coming in here tonight … maybe it was because I didn’t put a lot of pressure on them about coming in here and winning tonight,” Kerns said.
Greenville was led by Brandenburg with 10 points, and McKinney chipped in eight points as well.
Sidney now stands at 17-0 on the year and 5-0 in the Greater Western Ohio Conference North Division.
Greenville fell to 2-15 overall and 0-5 in the GWOC North. The Lady Wave are back in action on Saturday when they host Troy.
“We don’t have a lot of skilled basketball players, and when you play a team like Sidney they can expose a lot of weaknesses. We are working hard to improve our basketball knowledge and getting better as a team,” Kerns said.
“In this league you have a home and away game, and we will see them again. Our goal is to learn from this game so when we play again we won’t be scared and we will play with more intensity,” Kerns concluded.
In junior varsity action Greenville hung on to win an exciting game by the score of 40-39.
Box score:
Score by quarters:
Greenville …02…05…12…05 – 24
Sidney …….16…14…19…16 – 65
Individual scores:
Greenville
Karsyn Shaffer 2, Payton Brandenburg 10, Cassie Cromwell 2, Chloe McKinney 8, Kaylee Jackson 2 – Totals 0-8-8/14 – 24
Sidney
Davis 10, Moss 2, Eagon 2, Kindell 2, Miller 3, Timmons 2, Rorland 3, Hudson 14, Tabor 27 – Totals 4-23-7/11 – 65
