Riverside boys basketball team continues surprising run
NORTH SEWICKLEY TWP. – To the casual high school hoops fan, most of the playoff expectations from the 16117 Ellwood City ZIP code centered around the Ellwood City boys.
Expectations for the Riverside boys’ team didn’t run as high ― except in the Panthers’ locker room, and that is proving to be more than enough to make the season interesting,
Starting with a win over archrival Ellwood City, Riverside defeated New Brighton 76-52 Friday for its fourth straight win and remains in control of its own destiny for a playoff spot in Section 3A-1. The game was played at the unusual time of 6 p.m. because there was no JV game.
Now 7-10 and 4-3 in section, the win streak began with a come-from-behind win over Ellwood City. New Brighton is now 3-14, 1-8.
“I always knew we’d be making the playoffs,” said sophomore Drake Fox, who scored 11 in the win. “We have to keep coming out and playing the next game like it is our biggest game.
“We have to have a mixture between playing fast-paced and being patient. These next few weeks are going to be exciting.”
Attaining that balance of pace and patience has been the challenge of veteran coach John Rorick.
“That’s why I have no hair,” joked Rorick. “We have two seniors and the rest are underclassmen ― we start two sophomores, so it goes with the territory.
“We’re a work in progress, but we’re definitely getting better and working hard to keep getting better. Our two seniors have been rock solid but we weren’t in a lot of close games early in the season and now we have to learn to play in games like that and games when we have a lead. A lot of our problems are still self-inflicted, but we’re learning to stop the problem on the next play.”
Against New Brighton, there were still some mistakes but not as many and not a lot of long bad runs. The Panthers never trailed and built a double-digit lead in the first quarter, but New Brighton cut it to seven points in the second quarter at 29-22 when Marquis White hit a free throw ― but Sam Hughes hit a three-pointer 13 seconds later and the lead was never single digits again.
The lead reached 20 before the second half was five minutes old on another Hughes bucket, but New Brighton cut the margin four times on a Rob Janis bucket with 6:05 left. Hughes finished as the game’s top scorer with 20 points while Janis also finished in double digits at 13. New Brighton was led by Isaiah Hayhurst with 14 and Derrell Rogers Jr. with 12.
“I could have scored more than 20 if coach would have let me in,” said Hughes with a smile. “It definitely felt good out there. I think it was the first time we were really all playing together.
“It felt more like a scrimmage at first because of the time we played, but we’re definitely playing better now. As a team, we definitely felt like we’d playing in a playoff situation like this and it feels good.”
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Riverside boys basketball team wins fourth in a row
