EATON — Sean Sims likes the direction his Eaton boys’ basketball program is headed.
For good reason.
Sims said the Eagles got a program defining win on Friday when they took down visiting Valley View 71-64 in overtime. The win was the first home win for Eaton over Spartans since the 2015 season.
That win came on the heels of a disappointing loss to Dixie (54-45) on Tuesday, Jan. 4.
”We had Dixie on Tuesday, and we didn’t show up to play. Didn’t have a lot of life, a lot of energy. I don’t know what the cause of that was, but I just felt like, we didn’t have a lot of juice,” Sims said. “And they came out here and they took it to us. I’m happy that it happened now. Wednesday was a very big day for us in regards to we had a great practice. We had a big team meeting, watched some film, kind of reviewed the mistakes that we made, and then we kind of honed in on buying into knowing that if we play well as a team successfully, that’s our best chance of having success on the floor.”
Ramy Ahmed led the Eagles with 21 points, five rebounds and four assists. Grant Miller tossed in nine points. Beau Miller added six and 10 rebounds and Christian Reyna contributed five points and six rebounds.
Sims said it was chance for his team to regroup.
”So we had probably our two best practices of the year on Wednesday and Thursday, and to come in against Valley View on Friday then, hadn’t beaten them at home since 2015, so we had a big chip on our shoulder and a lot of passion, a lot of energy to get the win. And that was a great test for us,” he said. “We beat Valley View. It was a huge program win for us, continues to keep us first place in our side of the league, which is something that hasn’t happened a long time for Eaton basketball.”
Eaton led 14-10 after the first quarter and was up 32-23 at the half. The Eagles took that nine-point lead to the fourth quarter, but the Spartans rallied to force overtime.
Instead of folding, the Eagles answered the Spartans challenge to claim the win and remain atop the standings in the Southwestern Buckeye League’s West Division.
Ahmed led the way with 27 points, seven steals, six rebounds and three assists. Beau Miller added 17 and seven rebounds. Carson Janney had a solid night with 12 points and eight rebounds, while Reyna added seven points and seven rebounds.
On Saturday, Eaton scored a 59-52 win over visiting Greenville.
“We talked about taking that next step of being a good team and winning consistent games back to back,” Sims said. “We talked about we have really good scorers, we have really good players and those guys are going to get great opportunities to score and those passes too. But we really needed to buy in on the team emphasis this week and I’m super happy and proud of our guys. To win two out of three this week is good for me and now we got to take a break, revamp and then get back to work and it’s not over. So we got to keep rolling.”
Ahmed led the way again with 20 points and six rebounds. Dominick Gramaglia added 10 points and three rebounds.
Grant Miller contributed nine points. Beau Miller added eight and six rebounds and Reyna finished with seven points, four assists and three rebounds.
Sims said for those paying attention keep doing so.
“So if anybody is listening, just keep buying into what we’re doing and keep believing,” he said. “Eaton basketball’s in the right spot. We’re just going to continue to get better. So it’s an exciting time.”
Eaton (5-7, 3-3 SWBL) is scheduled to host Carlisle on Friday and travel to National Trail on Saturday.
