GREENVILLE – The Greenville girls basketball team continues to see progress from last season.
Even though the Lady Wave lost 62-36 to Lebanon Tuesday night, it still was another sign of how far they have come in the past year.
“Last year we lost to them 66-9 so this is a huge improvement from that,” said Greenville assistant coach Ryan Fiely, who filled in for an ill Rachel Kerns on Tuesday. “We did a lot of good basketball things. We got ourselves in a lot of good spots. We didn’t finish every time, which is the next thing we need to work on, finish passes, finish baskets. But we did a lot of things pretty well and a ton better than we were last year at this point.”
Greenville didn’t start off well in the game as Lebanon scored the first 14 points of the night.
The Lady Wave finally broke their scoreless drought with a 3-pointer by Chloe McKinney with 1:27 remaining in the opening period. Karsyn Shaffer then added four points as Greenville outscored Lebanon 7-2 in the final 90 seconds of the quarter to make it 16-7 through the first eight minutes of the game.
“We just need to learn to come out better in the first quarter,” Fiely said. “That’s been a little bit of an Achilles’ heel here the last few weeks. We’ll change that on Monday.”
Greenville started off the second quarter well with baskets by McKinney and Kaylee Jackson before Lebanon went on a 14-2 run – with only Shaffer scoring for Greenville in that stretch – to make it a 36-13 game.
The Lady Wave again finished the quarter strong with baskets by Lessie Cable and Jackson to make it 36-17 at halftime.
Greenville was up and down throughout the game, which is part of the learning process, Fiely said.
“That comes from just learning,” he said. “When we get tired or things start to get a little hectic we fall to old habits, and that’s when you see us struggle. But when we sit down and focus and play good defense then you start seeing the points where we get a little run, score some baskets, get some stops. “
In the third quarter Greenville got points from Cassie Cromwell, Jackson, Sara Wenning and Shaffer as the period ended with Lebanon leading 53-26.
Greenville’s best quarter of the night was the fourth in which the Lady Wave outscored the Warriors 10-9. After early scoring from McKinney and Shaffer, Cromwell, Jackson and Shaffer each scored as the Lady Wave finished the game on a 7-0 run to make the final score 62-36.
“The second half we played pretty well,” Fiely said. “We had two goals, and we met both of them – a point total that we needed to get to and a point total we needed to hold them under.”
Shaffer led Greenville with 11 points in Tuesday’s game. Also for the Lady Wave, Jackson scored 10 points, McKinney scored seven, Cromwell scored four, Cable scored two, and Wenning scored two.
Maygan Boettcher led Lebanon with 14 points in the game. Also for the Warriors, Rachel Perry scored 10 points, Rachael Sweetman scored nine, Jenna Bour scored eight, Brittany Dimitriou scored six, Alex Warning scored six, Ashley West scored six, Clara Blaine scored two, and Sydney Hanna scored one.
“Defensively we got to a lot of good spots,” Fiely said. “They made some shots. They got some offensive put-backs. But we did a lot of small things correct that will help lead us to some more victories here in the future.”
Greenville fell to 2-9 with Tuesday’s loss while Lebanon improved to 5-4. Greenville will return to action on Monday in a Greater Western Ohio Conference game at Troy.
