GREENVILLE – The visiting Stebbins Indians built an early cushion and never looked back, defeating the Greenville Green Wave 66-48 in Tuesday night Miami Valley League varsity boys basketball action.
Greenville struggled from the opening tip, falling behind 21-7 after one quarter of play as shots at the rim repeatedly missed the mark.
“I saw a quote, ‘My bad gets you beat,’” Greenville coach Matt Hamilton said following the loss. “There are times we have to take things more seriously. We miss a layup in practice, we can’t laugh it off, because guess what happens in a game? How you practice is how you’re going to play, and we have to do a better job of that.”
The second period was more competitive for the Wave, but Stebbins still controlled the quarter 18-13, sending the teams to the locker room with the Indians holding a commanding 39-20 halftime advantage.
Stebbins continued to build on its lead in the third quarter as Greenville’s turnovers mounted. The Indians took the period 12-8 to extend the margin to 51-28 heading into the fourth.
“We are obviously struggling with turnovers,” Hamilton noted. “We played Troy and made it through because we shot the lights out, but 20-plus turnovers every game at this point is going nowhere fast. We have to make better decisions.”
Foul trouble further hampered Greenville in the final quarter, with three Wave starters fouling out and Johnny Barr picking up four fouls. Despite the challenges, Greenville won the fourth quarter 20-15.
“We kind of got uncharacteristically out of our heads a little bit,” Hamilton said. “We fouled multiple guys, and we couldn’t get into what we wanted to do very often.”
The foul-plagued MVL matchup saw Stebbins go 17-of-27 from the free-throw line, while Greenville finished 12-of-18 at the charity stripe. The Indians were also assessed a technical foul during the contest.
Stebbins’ Cayden Bishop led all scorers with a game-high 23 points.
Greenville’s non-starters provided a bright spot, accounting for 24 points on the night. Junior Gage Denham led Greenville with 12 points, while JiJi Jim added eight. Landon Noble scored four points, and Logan Inman chipped in two to round out the bench production.
“Gage is a guy that is going to go out there and lay everything on the line,” Hamilton said. “He’s going to play as hard as he can. That rubs off on a lot of guys, and we have questions to answer.”
BOX SCORE:
STEBBINS 66, GREENVILLE 48
STEBBINS – C. Bishop 23, A. Carter 1, M. James 12, L. Beard 7, Z. Cron 6, A. Harris 4, T. Newton 3 – TOTALS 20 17-27 3 66
GREENVILLE – G. Denham 12, JiJi Jim 8, J. Barr 7, E. Flatter 6, I. Kerg 6, L. Noble 4, D. Conway 3, L. Inman 2 – TOTALS 15 12-18 2 48
3-POINTERS
Stebbins 3 (A. Carter 1, M. James 1, T. Newton 1)
Greenville 2 (JiJi Jim 1, I. Kerg 1)
SCORE by QUARTERS
21-18-12-15 66 Stebbins
07-13-08-20 48 Greenville
