Strong defense, solid rebounding and scoring lead to impressive Greenville MVL win over Fairborn
GREENVILLE – Greenville defeated the visiting Fairborn Skyhawks 55-42 in a Friday night MVL matchup by finding the missing component in its first two games of the young season…scoring.
“It’s nice to see we put some points up on the board tonight,” said Greenville coach, Bobby Jones. “We talked to the guys in the locker room and a few of them specifically – we can’t rebound the ball if we don’t shoot it and the reason we only had 32 and 37-points in the first two games is because we didn’t shoot it enough.”
The Wave took an 8-7 lead after one period of play with seniors Alex Baumgardner and Hayden Bush each knocking down two buckets in the paint.
Greenville was one better in the second quarter of play adding 14-points to the board while holding the Skyhawks to 13-points sending the teams the break with the Wave holding a slim 22-20 advantage over Fairborn.
Nolan Curtis led Greenville with 4-points including a 3-pointer and 2-2 at the free throw line, Haiden Livingston drilled a trey, Bush added 3-points, Million Bryant a basket and DJ Zimmer a free throw.
Greenville came out of the break strong taking advantage of Nolan Curtis’ hot hand with the senior burring three 3-pointers, a 2-point bucket and 1-1 at the line good for 12-points to lead the Wave to an 18-13 third quarter advantage and lead 40-33 with one period to play. Zimmer added 4-points and Baumgardner was good for a 2-point bucket.
“Nolan stepped up and responded big time in the second half – third quarter nails three 3’s from the corner and that is what we needed him to do,” Jones stated. “We challenged him to do that – nobody else was going to do it so that is a senior leader stepping up.”
“Alex Baumgardner stepped up after not finishing a couple wide open layups and then getting a couple fouls,” said Coach Jones. “The second half he went out and got the job done so that is what senior leaders are supposed to do – respond”
The Wave grabbed a 44-33 double digit lead at 6:51 in the fourth with Baumgardner going strong to the basket making it a 15-point 55-40 lead with the clock winding down under a minute before settling for an impressive 55-42 Miami Valley League victory.
“We had to changeup what we were doing defensively because they were blowing by us when we were in man-to-man so we went to our trap and another zone defense,” said Jones. “That kind of rattled them a little bit and we were able to get a little bit of cushion.”
Baumgardner paced the Wave fourth with 6-points, Curtis drilled his fifth triple of the night, Livingston added 3-points at the charity stripe, Zimmer went 2-2 at the line and Bryant added a free throw to round out fourth quarter scoring.
The Wave won each of the four quarters on the night, a result of solid defense and strong rebounding.
“DJ was crashing the boards hard like he always does,” said Jones. “DJ didn’t get in foul trouble early tonight, he picked up three fouls but he got that third one in late in the third quarter so that is nice to have DJ and Alex (Baumgardner) out on the floor for longer spurts because when they’re not in the game we give up an awful lot on the boards.”
Coach Bobby Jones expects the team to build on the Friday night MVL win going forward.
“The one thing about these guys this year – we talked about not having time to prepare last year because the games were such a quick turnaround,” explained Jones. “Now we have time to prepare for opponents and these guys are really locked in in practice.”
“They’re really studying the scouting report, they are watching film and they are holding each other accountable,” Jones added. “We are going to give ourselves a chance to be competitive in every game because of the preparation these guys put in for every opponent.”
Curtis led Greenville and all scorers with a game high 20-points including five 3-pointers and a perfect 3-3 at the charity stripe.
BOXSCORE
GREENVILLE 55, FAIRBORN 42
GREENVILLE – N. Curtis 20, A. Baumgardner 12, H. Bush 7, DJ Zimmer 7, H. Livingston 6, M. Bryant 3 – TOTALS 12 13-19 6 55
FAIRBORN – C. Bush 15, T. Williams 15, D. Davis 3, A. Willis 2, D. Graham 2, M. Wardle 2, J. Roschi 2, D. Chaney 1 – TOTALS 12 6-9 4 42
3-POINTERS
Greenville 6 (N. Curtis 5, H. Livingston 1)
Fairborn 4 (T. Williams 2, A. Willis 1, D. Graham 1)
SCORE by QUARTERS
08-14-18-15 55 Greenville
07-13-13-09 42 Fairborn
