By Drew Terhall

Dailyadvocate.com

GREENVILLE — The Lady Wave competed in a defensive battle at home against Parkway on Jan. 8. They lost 34-25 against the defending MAC champions.

Head coach Rachel Kerns said Parkway will be one of the most fundamentally sound defenses they will face this season. She also thought her team played some sound defense as well.

“They are probably the most fundamentally sound team we will see in the half court, their man to man defense. They did a really good job. But, I think we did a really good job on the defensive end tonight too,” Kerns said.

It was a defensive battle to start as Parkway held a 5-2 lead after one quarter of play. Once freshman Megan Loudy made a three pointer to tie the game at 7-7 with 2:22 left, the teams went back and forth to finish out the quarter.

The Lady Panthers went into halftime leading 13-9. It seemed like the Lady Wave had some momentum brewing on offense to end out the first half.

But things didn’t go smoothly in the third quarter. Parkway started to come to life and hit a few outside shots to start to pull away. After scoring 13 in a half, Parkway scored 14 points in the third quarter alone.

Greenville did not make a field goal in the third quarter. They were able to get to the free throw line and were 5 for 8 from the line in the quarter.

Kerns said it was a physical game between the two defensive teams. Greenville had a hard time getting the ball in the post and had to keep passing the ball around the perimeter, draining a few extra seconds off the clock.

Every point had to be earned inside. Players like juniors Brooke Schmidt and Megan Lind locked down the paint.

“There was nothing easy. You couldn’t make a pass easy, you couldn’t cut through the lane easy. Give Parkway credit, they do a great job on the defensive end. Our girls did a really good job in the paint against them as well,” Kerns said.

The Lady Wave woke up on offense in the fourth quarter. For the first three minutes, Greenville went on an 8-1 run to get within six points of Parkway.

But the offense couldn’t hold on to that momentum. The team had some turnovers that prevented them from getting closer to Parkway.

Even when they forced a turnover on the defensive end, there were times they gave it right back to the Lady Panthers. Kerns said these are all fixable things that will be fixed with more experience and playing time together as a team.

This is still a young team getting their feet wet at the varsity level.

“Nine point loss, I can think of about nine points they had because of our silly turnovers. We talk about every possession matters,” Kerns said. “But on the flip side of that, how great that’s where we’re at in our program right now. We’re talking about just two, three, four possessions that are kind of swinging these games.”

The team was able to give some in-game ball handling experience to some players. Junior Avery Baumann, their main point guard, had to sit out for a while in the fourth quarter in foul trouble.

The team worked through some troubles bringing the ball up the court and still kept within striking distance of Parkway. But, they couldn’t get a run going in time before they had to start fouling.

Seven different players scored for Parkway in the game. Greenville had three players score. Loudy led the team with 17 points with two made threes. Sophomore Sara Loudy had four points and one made three while Lind had four points.

Greenville is 5-7 on the season with a 2-6 MVL record. They will play a conference game at Sidney on Jan. 10 at 7:30 p.m.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]