River Lions roll on
The Niagara River Lions made it four wins in a row with a 93-85 win at Guelph Saturday. File photo.
The Niagara River Lions made it two wins in as many nights with a 93-85 triumph over the Guelph Knighthawks in Canadian Elite Basketball League action Saturday at the Sleeman Centre.
The victory was also the fourth in a row for the River Lions, who improved to 5-1 after splitting their first two games of the season.
The strong start comes as no surprise to River Lions coach/general manager Victor Raso.
“Internally, we had a really good idea how good we were during training camp,” Raso said. “We saw the compete level and how much the guys liked each other, but it wasn’t until that home game against Edmonton that we realized how good we were.”
The final margin of victory, Raso said, didn’t really tell the tale of the game.
“Winning as much as we have been and winning by the margins we have been and being up by 20 at the half, complacency kind of crept it,” he said. “That is the biggest issue with winning.
“We had a really good first half overall and then in the second half we let our foot off the pedal and we let them come back in.”
The Knighthawks jumped out to a quick 9-0 lead before the River Lions quickly regrouped and built a 58-38 lead by halftime.
“We turned in around pretty quickly,” Raso said. “We had a really good first half overall and then in the second half we let our foot off the pedal and we let them come back in.
“There were a lot of fouls that slowed us down and we just didn’t necessarily play with the urgency we normally do.”
Once again, Raso was happy with his club’s effort away from the ball.
“We were pretty good defensively, especially in the first half. In the second half we kind of let the shooters get too many clean looks.”
Guillaume Boucard paced the River Lions offensively with 17 points, 11 rebounds and five assists. Trae Bell-Haynes added 15 points, six boards and six assists while Nem Mitrovic had 15 points, Dorian Pinson 14 points and Ryan Anderson 11 points.
The River Lions shots 47 per cent (34/71) from the floor and 62 per cent (15/24) from the free-throw line. Niagara out-rebounded Guelph 48-47.
The River Lions are at Hamilton Saturday, June 8 and home to the Honey Badgers, Wednesday, June 12.
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