Nov. 14 Niagara College report
The Niagara College Knights men’s basketball team pushed its Ontario Colleges Athletic Association record to 3-2 following a 77-61 victory over the visiting Fanshawe Falcons.
A strong defensive performance that forced 30 turnovers and held Fanshawe’s leading scorer Ali Traore to three points helped Niagara overcome a rough shooting night.
“Overall, you have to be happy holding a team to 61 points in the OCAA. Now we just need to have both sides working,” Niagara head coach Phil Mosley said.
Niagara grabbed quarter leads of 23-14, 39-35 and 54-48 before putting the game away by outscoring the visitors 23-14 in the final quarter.
“We had open shots from the outside, but they weren’t falling,” Molsey said. “At the end, we were trying to get lengthy possessions to shorten the game and get better looks.”
Top performers for Niagara were: Delroy Grandison, 13 points and eight rebounds; Reggie Williams, 13 points and six rebounds; Kennan Larmand, 11 points; Ethan Alino-DelaCruz, nine points, four rebounds and four steals; and Rahim Bardi, eight points.
Fanshawe was led by Aidan Whalen and Jalen Deerr with 13 points each.
Niagara is at Conestoga (2-2) Wednesday at 8 p.m.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
The visiting Fanshawe Falcons outscored Niagara’s women’s basketball team 18-12 in the fourth quarter to escape with a 48-47 victory.
Niagara, which fell to 1-3 with the loss, led for most of the game but was done in by cold shooting and 29 turnovers.
“We were a better basketball team than we showed. We gave the physical effort, but we need to clean things up and execute better,” Niagara head coach Chris Rao said.
One bright spot for Niagara was the play of Niagara Falls native Molly Taylor, who 13 points and 12 points in the loss.
“When the pressure goes up, I play better,” the former A.N. Myer and Niagara Juel player said.
Taylor is confident that there are better days ahead for the Knights.
“We’re definitely frustrated. We know we have to play better down the stretch,” she said.
Other top performers for Niagara were: Kate Roth with 10 points and 10 boards; Taryn Mitchell with nine points; Jamira Rousseau with eight points, five rebounds and five steals; and, Angelica Lapensee with three points and seven boards.
Niagara is at Conestoga (2-2) Wednesday at 6 p.m.
WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL
Niagara’s women’s volleyball squad pushed its record to 2-2 with a 3-0 (25-20, 25-16, 25-21) sweep of the Sheridan Bruins.
“I think we’re getting better every week. There were some moments where we controlled the pace of play,” Niagara coach Tommy Sloan said. “(We’re) still making a couple more errors than we wanted to. But we’re seeing the signs we want to see that are showing where we are going to be eventually.”
Niagara is struggling with slow starts.
“We end up losing the first point almost every set but it is what it is,” he said. “Something we want to take pride in, we think we’re a good-serving team and good-serving teams have the ability to build leads quickly and early in the game.”
Leading the way for Niagara against Sheridan was second-year middle Abbey Gooder with eight kills.
Top scorers for Niagara in the match were Hope Nicholson (17), Gooder (12), Natasha Desjardisn (11) and Montanna Taylor (6).
Niagara is at the Mohawk Mountaineers (4-0) Wednesday at 6 p.m.
MEN’S VOLLEYBALL
Niagara’s men’s volleyball squad saw its OCAA record drop to 2-2 following a 3-2 (25-18, 27-29, 25-22, 23-25, 8-15) loss to Sheridan.
“Not gonna lie, (I’m) very frustrated. We’ve trended towards not playing as well as we can. I think near the end of those sets we should have been able to close it out. We had them against the ropes and we just let them back into it,” Niagara coach Steve Stone said.
Third-year opposite hitter Dallas Melnick had a strong game for Niagara.
“Dallas has a heavy arm and I thought from the service line he did a great job of keeping it efficient at getting his serves in,” Stone said.”He was aggressive all night, which is what we want. We want all our guys to be aggressive but make smart plays as well.”
Top scorers for Niagara were Melnick (16), Connor Gambell (13), Colin Prelaz (11), Elijah Bugiardini (8) and Tyler Carmichael (7).
The Knights are at Mohawk (3-1) Wednesday at 8 p.m.
