By Drew Terhall

Dailyadvocate.com

GREENVILLE — With a starter down, the Lady Wave fell to the Miami division leader in Butler, 48-19, at home on Jan. 17. The team was without junior Megan Lind.

Head coach Rachel Kerns said the defense overall did fine as they had players adjusting to new roles. But, the turnovers they had led to the big deficit.

“Once we got it into a half-court game, we did okay. We just have to figure out shifting roles and who’s going to do what. We can’t turnover the ball over at half court,” Kerns said.

Both offenses took a while to get going. The Greenville offense got better as the quarter went on and got off better shots.

Junior Maddie Hutchens came off the bench and provided the spark needed to keep pace with the Lady Aviators. She scored all six points in the first quarter for Greenville.

Kerns said it was nice to see Hutchens be that spark and watch a few shots fall in.

“Maddie knew her role today. She’s definitely the spark we needed there in the first half. We just got to figure out who else can kind of step up and score,” Kerns said.

From that point on, Butler started to force turnovers and started to grow their lead slowly. Greenville was forced into long, drawn out possessions by Butler as they couldn’t find an open lane to attack.

The Lady Wave were stuck passing it around the perimeter and couldn’t get a clean pass to go inside. Contested shots and turnovers helped Butler get out in transition and generate some offense for them.

Butler led 22-11 at halftime. The Lady Aviators outscored the Lady Wave 26-8 in the second half.

Greenville couldn’t get into a rhythm offensively to keep up with Butler. They couldn’t persevere through the turnovers and hit enough shots to get themselves back into the game.

The defense was a bright spot for Greenville. They continued to find success limiting Butler’s half-court offense. Butler’s leading scorer, junior Noel Smith, didn’t reach her season average of 9 points until the fourth quarter when sophomore Jayda Lyons was guarding someone else in a different lineup.

Kerns said Lyons has been a great defender for them all season. She has been able to take away or limit an opponents leading scorer. They just couldn’t get momentum going on their side for their offense to take advantage of.

“Jayda doesn’t give up very many points, no matter who she’s guarding. We just have to figure out how we can be better on the offensive end,” Kerns said.

Hutchens led the team with nine points. Freshman Megan Loudy had five points, junior Avery Baumann had three points and sophomore Sara Loudy had two points.

Greenville is now 5-10 on the season with a 2-9 MVL record. They will play at Troy on Jan. 20 at 11:45 a.m. and then host Xenia on Jan. 24 at 7:30 p.m.

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