SPRINGFIELD – The Greenville Lady Wave advanced in OHSAA DIII tournament action with a 26-21 first-round win over the Piqua Lady Indians with an impressive 10-of-12 parade to the fourth quarter free throw line to secure the victory.
“We win games when we make free throws,” said Lady Wave veteran coach Rachael Kerns. “I said a lot this year about making free throws.”
“On paper, Piqua and Greenville are almost identical,” Kerns continued. “We split during the regular season. We knew defensively we were going to come in and do well. I don’t care who we’re playing; if we give up 21 points, we have a good chance of winning the basketball game.”
Greenville took a 7-4 first-quarter lead led by four Megan Lind points and an Avery Baumann 3-pointer.
Period No. 2 mirrored the opening quarter, with the Lady Wave scoring seven points, including Baumann’s second trey of the game. The defense held Piqua to four points, sending the game to the break with Greenville leading 14-8.
“It was a collective effort,” Kerns said. “We started hitting our bigs early; Avery hit a couple of threes in that first half.”
The teams played scoreless the first seven and a half minutes of the third quarter before the Lady Wave got a Jayda Lyons basket followed by three Piqua points for a 16-11 Greenville advantage with one period to play.
Greenville extended its lead to 20-11 at 5:33 in the fourth with Lind knocking going 2-2 at the charity stripe and made it a 22-12 double-digit lead with a Lind free throw. In the fourth, Baumann, Lyons, and Megan Loudy each were a perfect 2-2 at the charity stripe, and Lind went 4-6 at the free throw line.
A Piqua 9-4 two-and-a-half minute scoring run late in the game was too little too late, with the Greenville Lady Wave advancing in tournament play with a five-point win.
“We did a lot of things to shoot ourselves in the foot a little bit, but it comes from being in a close situation in a tournament game,” said Coach Kerns. “We haven’t had many of those in the last couple of years.”
“It wasn’t an easy environment for us,” Kerns added. “They definitely had a nice little cheering section, and at the end of the day, we did just enough on offense, but I contribute this game one hundred percent to what we did on the defensive end.”
The Lady Wave advances to take on No. 1 seed Dayton Archbishop Carroll, 66-13 winners over Dayton Belmont in a Tuesday night, February 18 game at Springfield High School with a 6 p.m. start time.
“Carroll is good but what an opportunity to play someone that good in the tournament,” Coach Kerns concluded.
Unofficially, Greenville shot 6-21 from the field and 2-7 from beyond the three-point line. Piqua shot 7-40 from the floor and 0-9 from beyond the arc.
BOXSCORE:
GREENVILLE 26, PIQUA 21
GREENVILLE – A. Baumann 8, M. Lind 8, J. Lyons 4, A. Baumgardner 2, M. Loudy 2, B. Schmidt 2 – TOTALS 4 12-18 2 26
PIQUA – A. Bean 9, D. Cooper 7, A. Carroll 4, H. Schultz 1 – TOTALS 7 7-9 0 21
3-POINTERS
Greenville 2 (A. Baumann 2)
Piqua 0
SCORE by QUARTERS
07-07-02-10 26 Greenville
04-04-03-10 21 Piqua
