A 10-point rally during the last eight minutes of the game helped the fifth- and sixth-grade Green Wave overcome a four-point fourth-quarter deficit.

Those 10 points gave the Green Wave a 26-23 victory over the Lakers on Saturday at Langston Hughes Elementary School.

Green Wave head coach Randy Johnson said he was excited about the way his team played toward the end of the game.

“I was impressed with the fourth-quarter comeback because I thought we had lost the third quarter and we were down a little bit,” Johnson said. “But the kids brought it back together, and we used our height to our advantage there at the end.”

Green Wave point guard Jonathan Doll used quickness and stealthy sneakiness to steal the ball from the Laker point guards. Doll then used back-and-forth dribbling and spin moves in the lane to score. When running the half-court offense. Doll knew where all of his teammates were on the court and was able to find the open man who could take a shot.

When guard Tannyr Shelton was open for the shot, he used the backboard glass for assistance. When Shelton had the chance to bring the ball up the court he slowed the pace of the game to give his teammates a rest from defense.

Green Wave forward Sawyer Zook prepared to shoot against the Lakers Saturday at Langston Hughes Elementary School.

Johnson said his guards played well, but they could improve on their outlet passing.

“We will try to pass the ball ahead, or at least look ahead, after we get rebounds,” Johnson said.

Johnson said he planned to run the Green Wave through exercises designed to improve ball movement.

“We’re going to work on some three-on-two drills because passing is really our main concern,” Johnson said. “But once we get the passing down I think we’ll have a pretty good year.”

The Lakers put up a fight for the majority of the game but came up short when the final whistle blew.

The Lakers’ ambidextrous point guard, Robert Stacey, used his two hands to juke defenders on the way to the basket. Once under the basket, Stacey went up for some unconventional lay-ups: left-handed finger rolls with a touch of English that caused the ball to spin sharply off the backboard and through the net.

Lakers head coach Park Lockwood said his team never quit even when the Green Wave were making their fourth-quarter run.

“I thought that the kids always put out a lot of effort,” Lockwood said. “They got up and down the court and that’s something that we kind of work at.”

Lakers guard Gari Jones put forth the effort on offense. He led all scorers with 10 points. He pushed the ball up the court and hit five-foot jumper, and showed range by stepping back to knock down 20-foot jumpers as well.

Lockwood agreed with Johnson that passing is the key to success for this season.

“We’ve got to work on passing because there was too much individual dribbling today,” Lockwood said. “But we’ve also got to work on blocking out because when we’re playing against bigger opponents we’ve got to keep our ground.”

Both coaches want to improve their teams’ passing ability for down the road. Saturday’s game could have gone the other way if a couple of passes had reached their target.