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Greenville
freshman Clay Guillozet scored 19 points to lead
the way for Greenville Friday. The bid to
get the first win of the year
fell short as Greenville fell to Piqua, losing by two. CNO
photo by Dylan Knoop
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Wave bid falls short for first win
By George Starks
GREENVILLE - When a kid plays with the heart of a champion, sometimes
that heart just isn't quite enough.
Such was the case for Clay Guillozet Friday at The Ocean.
The Greenville freshman put the Wave on his back and did all he could
to will Greenville to its first win of the season.
Despite leading all scorers with 19 points, Guillozet netted six of
those points in the final 33 seconds, giving the Wave their first and
only lead of the game 50-47.
"This is the third game in a row he's led the team in scoring," said
Wave coach Mike Bashore. He's fit into a role and doesn't mind coming
in off the bench as a freshman. He was our best option down the
stretch. He made a basket and got fouled, making the shots that put us
up there at the end. He's a phenomenal kid and he's getting better
every day."
With the score locked at 50-50, Piqua's Ryan Hughs dropped in a six
foot jumper with 2.5 seconds left on the game clock, giving the Indians
a 52-50 GWOC victory over Greenville.
While Greenville did everything it could to pull out that elusive first
win of the season, Bashore summed it up in just a few words pointing
out the Wave shot 11 of 23 from the foul line.
"You're not going to win games with that kind of shooting from the
line," commented Bashore. "Our kids battled hard and never gave up.
They've not given up all year. It's very frustrating that we had
another close one."
Trailing the Tribe 22-20 at the intermission, Greenville fell behind by
eight, 35-27, after three.
In the final frame, the Wave and the Indians would find themselves
trading baskets, with Greenville falling behind by no more than nine
but could never get any closer than seven, 40-33 with 4:34 remaining.
Then the light came on and Guillozet started to get it going, draining
a three with just under two minutes to play, getting the Wave to within
a 47-44 count.
"We had watched them play three or four times, and if you break the two
teams down, we're actually similar to each other," said Bashore. "Our
guards and our big guys are very similar to each other and they have a
freshman that comes off their bench too. We run most of the same kind
of stuff so we are similar in nature and we knew that was going to be a
little bit of a problem. We knew they were going to score on us and we
were going to score on them. We just missed a lot of shots early on in
the first half."
The win was the third in a row for the Indians, now 4-6.
"They've been playing with a lot of confidence," said Bashore. "I think
that's the difference between them and us right now. They've got a lot
of breaks in their favor, and right now, we're not catching those
breaks and Piqua's playing with a lot of confidence."
With a young team on the floor for the Wave, Bashore said of his bunch,
"We are doing things better now than we were earlier in the year. We
are executing better on offense and we only gave up 52 points tonight
and that's not bad defensively."
With the loss, Greenville goes to 0-9 on the season and will travel to
Vandalia-Butler on Tuesday.
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