Three straight wins for River Lions
A triple double Thursday night by Omari Moore powered the visiting Niagara River Lions to a 94-80 victory over the Montreal Alliance in Canadian Elite Basketball League action.
The starting point guard for the Raptors 905 in 2023/24 finished the game with 16 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists, five steals, three blocked shots and a plus-32 rating.
“He was excellent and I could barely take him off the floor he was so good,” River Lions head coach/GM Victor Raso said.
Moore has been everything and more for the River Lions.
“I knew he was a good basketball player. I didn’t know how good of a person he is and how many ways he impacts the game,” Raso said. “He has leadership qualities. I heard he was a good kid but I didn’t know to what extent he was a leader but he is advertised plus some.”
Niagara won its third straight game to improve to 4-2 on the season while the Alliance fell to 2-5 with the loss.
The River Lions built quarter leads of 24-20, 48-35 and 77-50 to record the victory.
“It was a very good win,” Raso said. “We played excellent until the beginning of target time. We were up 28 going into target time and we won the game by 14. We defended really well, we dominated the boards and we were very sharp until target time.”
Target time wasn’t pretty for Niagara.
“The momentum in the building shifted, they were playing very aggressive and the refs were letting them play. We finally hit a three to win 94-80.”
Raso could understand the target time lull.
“It is a very tough situation to be in for these guys when you are up by that much.”
Also topping the stat sheet for Niagara were: Javhon Blair with 21 points and five rebounds; Nathan Cayo with 15 points; Elijah Lufile with 11 points and 12 rebounds; TJ Lall with nine points and seven boards; Aaryn Rai with nine points; and, Louden Love with seven points and eight rebounds.
Top scorers for Montreal were Ahmed Hill with 19 points, Jordan Bowden with 17 points and former River Lion Guillaume Payen-Boucard with 13 points.
The River Lions play in Ottawa Saturday night before returning home for an 11 a.m. Wednesday home game versus the Scarborough Shooting Stars.
“We have to keep focusing on the things we have been focusing on and play good basketball,” Raso said. “Our defensive coach (Troy Stevenson) has done a tremendous job instilling fundamentals in the group and we have to keep hammering those home. The way we have played offence so far has been successful and we need to continue to do that.
“We haven’t had a ton of adversity in the last two games and we can probably expect that on Saturday.”
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