River Lions improve to 3-2
The Niagara River Lions climbed over the .500 mark for the first time in the Canadian Elite Basketball League season Sunday night with a 100-79 road victory over the Edmonton Stingers.
Niagara improved to 3-2 on the season with the win while the Stingers dropped to 4-2 with the setback. On the way to recording their first road victory of the season, the River Lions built quarter leads of 25-18, 44-35 and 76-58 before 3,864 fans at the Edmonton EXPO Centre.
“We defended the entire game and fundamentally we stuck to our plan. We had moments in the first and one moment in the second half where we strayed offensively from our plan a little bit but it was a very good performance,” River Lions head coach/GM Victor Raso said. “We defended incredibly well, we rebounded very well, we made shots on offence because we were on the same page and that was a 4-1 team, one of the best teams in our league, and that’s a tough place to play and to win by 21 here is one of the better wins I have had as a River Lions coach.”
For Raso, that statement is anything but hyperbole.
“It is really hard to win on the road in the CEBL and it is really hard to win on the road against a good team in our league. They were 4-0 until they lost a buzzer beater game before this. It was a good team coming off a loss playing at home in a pretty packed gym,” he said. “It is tough to win in Edmonton. I have been here a lot of times and we haven’t won many.”
Raso and the River Lions won’t be resting on their laurels.
“We need to keep at it. We are so much better than we were two weeks ago when we played Brampton in our very first game,” he said. “We have to keep improving and we have to keep finding out our identity. We played well tonight but we have only been together for less than a month and there are lots of things that we don’t know about each other yet. There is going to be lots of adversity that hits us so it’s sticking to the fundamentals, getting reps in terms of what we do and keep building.”
Top performers for Niagara were: Javhon Blair with 26 points and six rebounds; Nathan Cayo with 23 points; TJ Lall with 13 points and seven boards; Kimbal Mackenzie with 12 points; Elijah Lufile with six points and eight rebounds; and, Omari Moore with six points and five assists.
Antonio Davis, Jr. missed his second straight game with injury and his return is not imminent.
“He is on our roster and capable of playing but he is nursing some things that we are trying to manage,” Raso said.
Ben Krikke had 14 and Michael Nuga netted 13 to lead the Stingers.
Next up for the River Lions is a Thursday game at the Montreal Alliance.
The River Lions will leave Edmonton Tuesday morning and will be in Montreal until Thursday night. From there, they move to Ottawa for a Saturday night game. They will fly home Sunday morning.
“It is a long road trip for us,” Raso said. “It’s great. I love it. To play as well as we did tonight and have this time together the rest of the week is excellent for bonding purposes.”
