GREENVILLE – The Green Wave earned their second win of the 2025 season with class and discipline at Alumni Stadium with a convincing 30-0 win over the visiting West Carrollton Pirates.
“It’s a team win,” said Coach Steve Channell. “Anytime you’ve gone through the recent here, it’s a team win, there’s no individuals. There are some kids who played hard and do really well, but this is a total team effort from all aspects.”
Coach Channell and his staff have instilled discipline on the field, giving the Wave a decisive advantage in the penalty part of the Friday night league game.
“We talked about that during the week, the fact that we need to be a disciplined football team tonight,” Channell said. “For the second week in a row, I was really glad to see how hard and how much effort we played with.”
“We didn’t turn the ball over,” he continued. “Last week, we turned it over once. When I took the job, I talked about not beating yourself, so for the first two weeks, we haven’t beaten ourselves. I think the kids are understanding that it is a part of the formula to have success, you just can’t beat yourself, and tonight we didn’t beat ourselves. That’s a big positive.”
Greenville’s defense held on the Pirates’ opening drive to start the game, turning the ball over to the Wave. Greenville junior Isaac Kerg raced 15 yards for the Wave’s first touchdown of the night. An Aiden Manix to John Barr two-point conversion pass had the Green Wave leading 8-0 at 6:48 in the first.
The Greenville defense quickly got the ball back with a Kerg fumble recovery at 5:04, giving the Wave possession on the Pirates 40 40-yard line. Greenville responded with a first play Manix to Barr 40-yard touchdown strike through the air. Gage Denham raced around the right side, making good on the two-point conversion, upping the Wave to 16-0 with 4:56 on the first quarter clock.
Facing a fourth and 18 from the Pirates’ 39-yard line, Greenville went to the air with Manix hitting Barr for a 39-yard touchdown at 7:59 in the second quarter. Wyatt Thacker split the uprights out of the hold of Grady Looker, making good on the team’s first PAT kick of the season, and a Green Wave 23-0 lead.
Staring at a fourth and seven and looking for points, West Carrollton went for a first down only to fumble with Rammel covering the ball for the Wave on the Pirates’ 47-yard line.
With time running down in the first half, Rammel raced 44 yards around the right side, good for a Greenville touchdown at 0:47 with the Green Wave cannon sounding off for the ninth time of the night.
Thacker again made good on the PAT kick with Looker holding, giving Greenville a 30-0 lead heading to the halftime locker room, setting a running clock in play for the entire second half.
“I wanted to wait for the right situation to do that,” Coach Channell said of the two successful PAT kicks. “We’ve been working on it, and we know at some point that we have to be able to do it, so I thought tonight when the opportunities presented themselves – ok, let’s see what we can do, and we were 2-for-2, so that was a big positive.”
Coach Channell took advantage of the large second-half lead, getting his JV squad valuable playing time on the field. Greenville’s second-half defense did bend on several occasions, but continually rose to the occasion, never breaking, preserving the shutout and the conference win.
“We tried to get as many kids in,” Channel stated. “You just don’t want to do mass substitution, because they were keeping their ‘ones’ in the whole time, so we got guys in as best we could.”
Coach Channel was pleased with all facets of the team’s play, including defense, limited penalties, and no turnovers.
“Our special teams – very sound, defense played a tremendous game,” Coach Channell said. “Coach Current’s defensive staff did a great job of preparing because they have some athletes, and they can hurt you at any point in time. We struggled offensively a little bit up front, but they were bringing nine guys to the line of scrimmage, and that’s going to happen. All-in-all, week two in Greenville, two home games, new stadium, new program – happy as we can be.”
Following the win, students, fans, and parents made their way to the field to help in the Green Wave celebration, ringing of the bell, and Coach Channell’s post-game speech to the team.
“That’s why I want to start a tradition; it looks like they already picked up on it,” Coach Channell said. “When we win here, fans, parents, everybody else come down – I’ll talk to all of them. I am going to do everything I can to get this program rolling and get everybody behind it, so I was glad to see all those parents and students come down at the post-game.”
