JAMESTOWN — Coming off a season where his Knights won a total of three games, Greenon coach Kevin Taylor said he pointed at neighboring Greeneview as a team his kids should emulate on the court.
On Friday, Taylor’s young squad came into Greeneview’s gym and won, 50-42.
The Greenon coach said the week’s tough league and non-league schedule prepped his team for a good battle with the Rams.
“This week has been a tough week for us. We played Stebbins out of the (Greater Western Ohio Conference) and then Southeastern, and now Greeneview. We kinda marked this on our schedule as being one of our toughest stretches of the season, just because of the past history of these schools being very successful,” Taylor said. “Our kids were really focused this week. This could be a turning point for our program. We have some young kids, but they play hard and we’re trying to learn how to win.”
With Greeneview’s Mason Schneider patrolling the inside and keeping Knights center Logan Coppock at bay, freshman Cade Rice began firing from the outside. Rice hit five 3-pointers as part of his game-high 28 points scored. Senior Trevor Anderson hit two other threes and junior Andrew Conover also hit one for the Knights.
Anderson and sophomore Luke Downing each finished with six points; Chaffin and Conover each scored five.
“Number 10 their young kid (Rice), he’s a great player. For a freshman, especially. He’s very talented, and we knew we needed to stop him,” Greeneview coach Kyle Fulk said. “We were also trying to their big guy No. 34 (Coppuck) inside. We did a good job on him, but Rice and a couple other guys hurt us tonight from outside.”
Greenon (3-2, 3-0 in the Ohio Heritage Conference) had a narrow 21-17 lead at halftime, but five of the Knights’ six made third-quarter shots from the field were threes. As a result, Greenon outscored the host Rams, 19-9, in the quarter and led 40-28 with eight minutes of action left to play.
Greeneview (1-4, 1-2 OHC) tried its darnedest to battle back in the final period of play. They pulled within six points of the lead — 44-38 — when Jack Nix bombed a 3-pointer from the right wing with 58 seconds left to play, but Greenon’s Rice caught a full-court pass from Chaffin and converted it at the other end with a jarring slam dunk. Rice was fouled on the play, hit the free throw, and the Knights were back in front by nine points, 47-38.
The Rams didn’t hit another shot from the floor again, settling for free throws in the final 26 seconds.
Schneider led the Rams with 18 points scored, Gabe Caudill scored eight while Nix and Collin Wilson each finished with five in the loss.
“Greeneview is a program that, at the beginning of the season, we told our players that we wanted to model ourselves after,” Taylor said. “They’ve been pretty successful and consistent, and we definitely respect them a lot. We want to get to where they’ve already been.”
Both teams are back in OHC action on Tuesday, Dec. 19. Greenon will entertain Springfield Catholic Central, while Greeneview will play host to London Madison Plains.