KETTERING – The Greenville boys basketball season came to a close with a 47-31 OHSAA DII tournament loss to the Urbana Hillclimbers.
The Hillclimbers jumped out to an 11-4 lead after one period of play followed with the teams playing to a 9-9 second quarter sending the teams to the break with Urbana leading by a 20-13 score.
The Green Wave struggled to find the basket in Period No. 3 with the Hillclimbers taking the quarter 8-1 score for a 28-14 advantage with one period to play.
Both teams used the fourth quarter for their larges offensive scoring of the night with Urbana taking the period 19-17 to move on in tournament action.
The 2020-2021 season comes to a close for first year Greenville head varsity boys basketball coach, Bobby Jones, a varsity high school coach that built a successful varsity basketball program at Hagerstown High School in Indiana prior to GHS.
With the COVID pandemic in play for the 2020-21 season, Coach Jones and his staff had no opportunity to work with the basketball team prior to the start of the regular season. No open gyms, no camps, no summer league play, no offseason shootouts or team conditioning … and the list goes on and on.
“We told them in the locker room after the game we appreciated all the time and effort they put in this year,” said Jones. “They worked their tails off for us.”
“The seniors kept everybody together,” continued Jones. “We are going to miss those guys’ leadership but the future is very, very bright. If the kids want to have success they will get in the gym and find a way.”
Suiting up for their final high school basketball game for the Green Wave; Reed Hanes, Jace Bunger, Cameron Fletcher and Heath Coomer.
“We have a good class coming in – we have a good group coming back,” Coach Jones stated. “We have talked an entire season what we have to get done in the offseason and becoming better basketball players fundamentally and just learning the game of basketball, the flow and what it takes to be a good team.”
Coach Jones is excited for the future of Green Wave boys basketball. The veteran coach is already putting his plan in place not waiting for the 2021-2022 basketball season to roll around.
“We have an extensive offseason schedule we are putting in place,” Jones noted. “Weight lifting, skill development – when the summer rolls around the month of June we are going to be very busy playing in a league, going to shootouts, going to team camp.”
“We are going to have our junior high kids doing the exact same things,” added Coach Jones. “Obviously we have had our Dayton Metro League going on. We have a lot of good things going on right now with the program and regardless of what happened tonight I am very excited about what’s to come.”
BOXSCORE:
GREENVILLE 31, URBANA 47
GREENVILLE – N. Curtis 9, R. Hanes 5, DJ Zimmer 5, Million Bryant 5, Hayden Bush 4, A. Baumgardner 3
URBANA – W. Donahoe 17, N. Weyrich 10, M. Keely 8, J. Hildebrand 6, R. Rogan 5, W. Teets 1
SCORE by QUARTERS:
04-09-01-17 31 Greenville
11-09-08-19 47 Urbana
