SHINGLEHOUSE — By their head coach’s own admission, Oswayo Valley played a very poor first 24 minutes.

The Green Wave were down by 10 heading into the fourth quarter, but fed off of an electric home crowd and some strong defense to pull off an impressive comeback over Austin, 51-50, on Wednesday night.

Oswayo Valley outscored the Panthers 19-8 over the game’s final eight minutes, and quickly found a solution to what ailed them in the game’s first three quarters. Mainly, they stopped turning the ball over on offense.

The Green Wave had 17 turnovers for the game, and couldn’t get into any kind of rhythm on offense. Austin held OV to just seven points in both the first and third quarters, and looked well on their way to notching their first North Tier League victory on the season.

After giving up five three-pointers to begin the game, OV’s 1-3-1 zone defense forced Austin to go cold from beyond the arc in the fourth. That, combined with an effective full court press and some good rebounding was just too much for the Panthers to overcome.

“I just think (our team) finally decided to give us a little effort on the defensive end,” OV head coach Clark Cummings said with a big smile after the game. “For three quarters we pretty much just walked through on the defensive end. They were getting open looks on us, they were getting cuts off us, and we just weren’t playing with much effort or energy. We tried to go to that 1-3-1 in the fourth, and we don’t run it a lot, and we were able to create a couple of turnovers and I felt the momentum begin to switch at that point.”

Despite a solid team effort down the stretch, Oswayo Valley had no chance winning this game without the performance of Theo Henry. The junior hit 10 field goals in the game and finished with 23 points to lead all scorers. Henry’s biggest shot came when his team needed them the most. With less than 30 seconds remaining, Henry hit both of his free-throw attempts to give the Green Wave a three-point lead. After one possession for each team, Austin had a chance to tie it as the buzzer sounded, but a three-point attempt fell just short. Austin’s efforts were not lost on Cummings, who was quick to give the opposition credit for how they played away from home.

“We made a couple of plays down the stretch and thankfully we did because they played a nice game,” Cummings said. “To come over here and play like that, I thought they played well. We were fortunate to get out with a win.”

The Green Wave only had four players record points on Wednesday, so Cummings was extra appreciative of the way Henry was able to take the game into his own hands.

“He’s a strong kid, and when he gets to the basket and he’s going hard he’s tough to stop for sure,” Cummings said. “We really feel like he’s a matchup problem for teams because of his strength and he stepped up big down the stretch and hit some baskets in the fourth which was huge. We don’t get the win without him.”

Blake Burgett had 17 points in a losing effort for the Panthers. Austin (6-5 overall, 0-4 NTL) began the season 5-0 but have lost five of its last six contests.

For Oswayo Valley (7-3 overall, 4-1 NTL), they’ve begun to get hot at the right time. Their lone NTL loss came to Cameron County by six points before Christmas, but they have swung four straight victories since. While the offense hasn’t been exactly where Cummings hopes it would be at this point in the season, his defense has done the job. The Green Wave have held opponents to 50 or fewer points in every game during that winning streak.

The next couple of games will now be telling if Oswayo Valley can put together a complete effort against some very strong NTL foes.

“We’re happy with the 4-1,” Cummings said. “How we’ve gotten here is ugly, we’ve really won some ugly games here lately, but we will take it at this time. Hopefully we just get better because we have Coudersport coming up twice, as well as Cameron, and (Otto) Eldred on Friday night. We’ve got the teeth of the schedule coming up so we just have to improve and get better.”

AT SHINGLEHOUSE

Austin (50)

Dempsey Glover 6 3-9 15, Burgett 7 0-0 17, J. Glover 3 0-0 7, Valenti 3 0-0 7, Rees 2 0-0 4. Totals: 21 3-9 50

Oswayo Valley (51)

Theo Henry 10 2-4 23, Babcock 5 3-3 14, T. Black 1 4-5 6, G. Black 1 3-4 5, Karr 0 3-6 3. Totals: 17 15-23 51

Austin 15 28 42 50

OV      7  25  32  51

Three-point goals: Austin 5 (Burgett 3, J. Glover 1, Valenti 1), OV 2 (Henry, Babcock); Total fouls: Austin 14, OV 12; fouled out: none

JV: Austin won 35-25