Defense the difference in Chaffee’s win over Greenville

The Chaffee Red Devils’ speed and athleticism spearheaded a 45-27 win over the Greenville Bears on Tuesday at Chaffee High School.

From the opening tip the Red Devils were forcing turnovers but they weren’t able to turn those turnovers into points.

“We have a deep team this year so we can go up and down the floor,” Red Devils coach Matthew Schonhoff said. “We can press and create a lot of havoc. The big thing is to get live ball turnovers.”

The result of some missed chances offensively was a 12-10 lead for the Bears after the first quarter of play.

“We had to stop fouling,” Schonhoff said. “That was the only way that they were scoring. When we stopped fouling our defense took over and we were able to get out in transition and score easy points.”

Chaffee was able to carry the same defensive intensity into the second quarter and coupling that with shots falling on the offensive end, the Red Devils took a 26-13 lead into the locker room at halftime.

“Our bench came in and got us rolling,” Schonhoff said. “It was a total team effort.”

Greenville opened the second half with an early bucket to cut the lead to 11 and following that neither team would score until Chaffee scored its first points with just under four minutes left in the third quarter.

“That was just a tale of us not being able to get the ball in the hole,” Schonhoff said. “We got great shots and maybe sometimes we weren’t strong enough to get the ball to the hole and score but that’s just the way the game was.”

After the 12-point beginning for the Bears, the Red Devils held them to just 15 points the rest of the way.

“We switched presses which did well,” Schonhoff said. “Once again, it was our bench. They came in and did well and scored points.”

Schonhoff feels that with time shots will begin to fall for his team.

“The thing is we are still in our fourth week of basketball,” Schonhoff said. “They just made a run to the state finals in softball so we are still putting the ball in their hands, getting in shape and that sort of thing.”

Greenville (1-2) has some time off before returning to the court at 6 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 4, when the Bears travel to take on Campbell.

Chaffee (1-1) is back in action at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 30, when it travels to take on Advance with Bell City.

“We need to have a good day of practice tomorrow,” Schonhoff said. “Then we will go play a good Advance team.”