Strong third quarter leads Greenville to MVL win over Piqua Lady Indians
GREENVILLE – The Lady Wave put together balanced scoring over four periods of play to earn a 55-46 MVL win over the visiting Piqua Lady Indians.
“Anytime you’re in January and you can get a win it’s a win, it’s a good win,” said Greenville coach, Rachael Kerns. “It doesn’t matter how it comes right now but a win is a win.”
Greenville took a 13-11 lead after one period of play with freshman Avery Baumann hitting for 6 first quarter points including a 3-pointer, Minaxi Pandey canned a trey and Skylar Fletcher and Megan Lind each added a 2-point basket.
The Lady Wave was again 2-points better than the Lady Indians in second quarter play led by Baumann’s 5-points including her second triple of the game, Pandey with 4-points and Fletcher a free throw for a 10-8 quarter sending the teams to the break with Greenville up 23-19.
“Avery Baumann had a phenomenal first half,” Kerns said. “I don’t know what the first half would have looked like had Avery not come out ready play. Not only did she get us 11-points in the first half but she also came out and played defense on one of their best scorers.”
“The girl who scored a lot tonight isn’t normally their leading scorer so Avery did a great job,” continued Kerns. “The second half we transitioned Avery on to her later on because we were still getting beat by No. 23 (Kenzie Anderson) so just an all-around great game by Avery. As a freshman it’s just fun seeing them get better and better.”
Period No. 3 saw the Lady Wave put 19-points on the board while Piqua was adding 11-points in the book to give Greenville a double digit 42-30 lead heading to the final quarter.
“We finished the third quarter very strong,” noted Kerns. “We really finished the third quarter very well and I thought we had enough to put them away.”
Fletcher paced the Lady Wave with 9 third quarter points, Gracie Thacker and Pandey each with 3-points all coming at the free throw line and Baumann and Lilly Hayes each with 2-points.
“Skylar does so many things with the stats,” Kerns said. “She finished up with 20-points and she had to work for her 20. They were face guarding her the whole game so for her to finish with 20 says a lot about her ability.”
“It was nice to see Minaxi being able to score other than just the 3-point line,” added Kerns. “It was good t see her make some free throws and get to the basket.”
Greenville stretched its lead to 51-33 at 3:23 before the visitors would close out the final three minutes on a 13-4 run for a 9-point Lady Wave conference win.
“I don’t want to take away from Piqua defensively but our own mental and physical mistakes in the half court on the offensive end is really what hurt us,” Kerns stated. “Not only did we turn it over but we would turn it over to lead to baskets the other way.”
“Those are things that are really not acceptable but this time of year playing in closer games sometimes it brings out turnovers we might not typically have,” added Kerns, “but in the end we had just enough steals, just enough makes and we did what we had to do.”
Fletcher led Greenville with 20-points, Piqua’s K. Anderson was high point for the game with 29-points.
Laikyn Bruner led the Lady Wave and all players with a game high 13-rebounds. Greenville freshman Megan Lind pulled down 10-boards.
“We need to figure out how we can get a whole complete game from one through five that are on the court but anytime you win in January it’s a good day,” Coach Kerns said following the win.
BOXSCORE
GREENVILLE 55, PIQUA 46
GREENVILLE – S. Fletcher 20, A. Baumann 13, M. Pandey 10, L. Hayes 4, G. Thacker 3, M. Lind 3, L. Bruner 2 – TOTALS 15 16-29 3 55
PIQUA – K. Anderson 29, L. Spradlin 8, C. Stewart 5, R. Toopes 4 – TOTALS 9 7-17 7 46
3-POINTERS
Greenville 3 (A. Baumann 2, M. Pandey 1)
Piqua 7 (K. Anderson 3, L. Spradlin 2, R. Toopes 1, C. Stewart 1)
SCORE by QUARTERS
13-10-19-13 55 Greenville
11-08-11-16 46 Piqua
