To say the Greene County boys’ basketball team has improved over the last month could be considered an understatement. Coach Jeramie Hinote’s Rams were 65-62 overtime winners over PCM (Monroe) in the middle school gym in Jefferson Friday night and the team evened its season record at 10 wins and 10 losses. The Rams were 3-8 when they went to Monroe on Jan. 12 and won 76-54, which started the turn around. Greene County went 7-3 on the road and 3-7 at home and the Feb. 12 win was their first at home since Jan. 5. The Rams are 3-0 this season in overtime games including 2-0 this week with wins a Tuesday 64-62 OT victory in Story City over Roland-Story.

The Friday night victory was the fourth straight for the Rams and they swept a two-game series from the Mustangs for the first time since joining the Heart of Iowa Activities Conference in the 2007-08 school year.  Greene County finished the Heart of Iowa Activities Conference season with a 9-7 record while PCM finished 10-6. Gilbert won the HOIAC title at 13-3 with Nevada next at 11-5, followed by PCM. The Rams, North Polk (Alleman), and South Hamilton (Jewell) were all 9-7, with Roland-Story 8-8, CMB (Maxwell) 2-14, and Saydel (Des Moines) 1-15.

The two multiple first team all-conference players on the floor Friday night lived up to their billing. Ram junior Trey Tucker had 26 points and PCM senior Logan Gilman scored 25, and both made five goals from three-point distance. Tucker was nine of 16 from the floor and three of four from the free throw line while Gilman was 10 of 27 from the field and he missed his only foul shot. Gilman’s three point effort at the end of OT spun out, keeping the game from going to a second overtime.

Ram freshman Trey Hinote had 12 points off the bench and sophomore Wade Adcock, along with seniors Tyler Beger and Max Neese each added seven points. PCM Luke Greiner had 17 and junior Noah Clark scored 13 after entering the game with a scoring average of two points per game.

Greene County went 23 of 53 from the floor with 11 turnovers, seven taking place in the third quarter, and the Rams were 10 for 17 shooting free throws. PCM was 27 of 67 from the floor and two of five from the charity stripe. They turned the ball over nine times.

With the regular season over, Greene County has some time before opening Class 3A district tournament play vs. Carroll High in Harlan at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 22 on KG98 and www.raccoonvalleyradio.com. The Tigers are 7-12 with two regular season games remaining.