Banner night for Shooting Stars
The Niagara River Lions dropped to 1-2 with a 95-87 loss at Scarborough Saturday. Photo: CEBL.
The Niagara River Lions ran into the Scarborough Shooting Stars at the wrong time.
The defending Canadian Elite Basketball League champions raised their championship banner in their home opener Saturday, then went out and topped the River Lions 95-87.
“They had more energy than us,” River Lions general manager/head coach Victor Raso said. “Tonight was always going to be a tough one with Scarborough, who’s talented, and their home opener and the environment and the juice.
“We just need to be better for Thursday.”
Saturday’s contest was a rematch of last year’s Eastern Conference final won by the Shooting Stars by three points.
“We didn’t play well. At times we did, but we didn’t start the game defending very well,” Raso said. “The offence kept us in it. We were down 72-70 in third quarter and missed two free throws that could have tied the game and had a bunch of opportunities to take the lead.
“We played all right, but we didn’t play very well.”
Raso feels it is all about the process at this point of the season.
“I know we’re going to get there, I can see it with this team,” he said. “This early in the year it’s just constantly getting opportunities to figure out what we’re not good at and how to fix those things. We made big jump from Game 1 to Game 2.”
Raso said the coaching staff are defining exactly what they expect from their players.
“We just keep building. It’s early in the year and it’s about playing the best basketball at the end,” he said. “It’s not getting caught up in wins and losses, it’s about what we do all the time and we need to do it better as a group. We need to figure out what to do and do it at a high level and there is some accountability about playing smarter and not letting the moment get to you.”
The River Lions were led by Jahvon Blair, who scored a game high 22 points off the bench to go with seven rebounds and three assists. Omari Moore chipped in with 16 points, while former Shooting Star Elijah Lufile had his best game of the season with 15 points and eight rebounds against his old squad.
“I was just trying to play my role,” Lufile said after the game on his return Scarborough. “I’m a high energy guy, get rebounds, put-backs and defend. That’s just my game, even if I score 20 points or zero points . . . it does feel good to be back though.”
The Shooting Stars were paced by the duo of Kadre Gray and Jackson Rowe who each put up double doubles. Gray led the way with a team-high 18 points and 10 assists while Rowe scored 13 points to go with his 13 rebounds. Meanwhile, Jaden Campbell finished with 11 points off the bench.
The River Lions host the Winnipeg Sea Bears Thursday at 7 p.m.
With files from the CEBL
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