GREENVILLE – The Lady Wave earned their first victory of the season Wednesday night, defeating the visiting Troy Lady Trojans 31–27 in Miami Valley League varsity girls basketball action.
“If we didn’t play hard like we do, we don’t win that game tonight,” said Greenville coach Shane Hillard. Defensively, I can’t ask for any more out of them. We are a very strong defensive team.”
Sophomore Lea Force came off the bench to deliver a team-high 12 points, providing exactly the lift Greenville needed.
“Leah is great off the bench for us,” Hillard said. “She brings that little spark for us, and I just told them in the locker room, I’m not taking away anything from anybody tonight—everybody played their tails off—but we probably don’t get that done without Leah tonight.”
“Those were huge minutes off the bench,” he added. “She was playing so well we just had to leave her. It wasn’t because I was upset with anybody—you can’t take her off the floor. She was doing so much for us. I love that for her because the past couple of games she has been struggling, so to see her work through it and have a big game, that was good to see. She needed that.”
The Lady Wave opened with a 10–5 first-quarter lead, getting four points from Force and two each from Jayda Lyons, Megan Loudy, and Sara Loudy.
Greenville opened the second quarter with six unanswered points to stretch the lead to 16–5 at the 5:17 mark. Troy responded with a 6–0 run to close the half, trimming the deficit to 16–11. Lyons scored four points in the period to pace the Wave.
The visitors edged Greenville 6–5 in the third quarter, cutting the Lady Wave advantage to 21–17 entering the final frame.
The teams battled evenly in the fourth, playing to a 10–10 draw. Force scored six points in the final period—including a perfect 2-for-2 at the free-throw line—to help secure the conference win.
“We haven’t been playing really well on the offensive side of the ball, been struggling, so for them to finally see some shots go in tonight and to get a win, they deserve it,” Hillard said. “I was feeling a little bad for them because we came off a three-overtime loss to Sidney that could have gone either way. That was big to them. But at the same time—no excuses—the schedule was a little heavy, and we didn’t lose to teams we shouldn’t have lost to. There were some pretty good ball clubs.”
“It got ugly there for a little bit, but we did what we do—when we play hard, we hang on. We found a way to hang on,” Hillard added. “We’re going to enjoy it tonight, get in front of some film tomorrow, and try to get better. That’s a huge win. They needed it.”
With the victory, Greenville improves to 1–4 while Troy drops to 1–2.
BOX SCORE:
GREENVILLE 31, TROY 27
GREENVILLE – L. Force 12, J. Lyons 9, M. Loudy 6, S. Loudy 3, A. Baumgardner 1 – TOTALS 10 11-17 0 31
TROY – A. Ayers 12, S. Adekoya 6, E. Ernst 3, J. Dillow 3, P. Williamson 3 – TOTALS 8 2-5 2 27
3-POINTERS
Greenville 0
Troy 3 (E. Ernst 1, J. Dillow 1, P. Williamson 1)
SCORE by QUARTERS
10-06-05-10 31 Greenville
05-06-06-10 27 Troy
