OLNEY, Ill. — The Three Rivers College men's basketball team got its season start off to a solid start on the road thanks to the quadruple threat of Jordan Hamilton, B.J. Francis, Lamont Jackson and Mario Fleming.
The troika scored 26, 17, 16 and 10 points respectively — Francis scoring 11 after halftime — and the Raiders pulled away in the second half against Olney Central's Blue Knights in a 78-66 win, despite the host's best efforts to rally.
"It was a really good win — any road win is a good win — but this was sweet because this is a hard place to play," Three Rivers head coach Brian Bess said. "We had a lot of guys step up and play well.
"(Four double-figure scorers) is great and it means that we are sharing the ball so that's good."
Three Rivers finished with only seven turnovers, none in the first 20 minutes. The Raiders shot 44.1 percent from the field, 40 percent from beyond the arc and hit all but one of their eight free throw attempts.
Defensively, the Raiders held their hosts to 33.3 percent shooting and only 24.1 percent from 3-point land.
Hosana Kitenge had a game-high 15 rebounds to lead Three Rivers while the team assisted eight of 30 baskets.
The Raiders open the home slate with this weekend's 1st Midwest Bank Classic, playing host to Richard J. Daley College 7 p.m. Friday and John A. Logan 7 p.m. Saturday.
The game was anything but easy as the Blue Knights continued to push the Raiders every time Olney Central saw their guests begin to pull away.
The Raiders started the second half as the more dominant force as they bumped up a 4-point lead to double-figures, 55-44, after the first seven-plus minutes passed.
Consecutive layups by Francis gave Three Rivers a 55-44 lead which induced an Olney timeout.
Francis continued to get to the rim and two more makes made it 61-48, the biggest Three Rivers edge at north of the 11-minute mark.
However, the next three minutes were dominated by the Blue Knights and with 8:43 left in the game, the Raiders found their lead trimmed to 61-54.
A Kitenge putback put Three Rivers up 65-55 about a minute-plus later and just south of the six-minute mark, Olney called a timeout down eight.
Three Rivers College got started on a three-pointer by Hamilton to break the seal on the season's scoring ledger and then their hosts got into a mini run behind some sharpshooting from Darien Lewis to take a 10-5 lead over the Raiders.
Hamilton hit his second triple to stop the Olney run and B.J. Francis came off the bench and scored a layup to go up 12-11.
Sophomore Lamont Jackson, the only returner from last year from Three Rivers roster hit a layup and followed that up with a triple and another hoop to go toe-to-toe with the Blue Knights as the game was tied at 20-apiece.
Jackson hit another trey, Hamilton nailed a floater and Mo Niang tipped in a miss and just south of the nine-minute mark, Three Rivers led 27-20.
Alas, Olney rallied to take the lead behind an eight-point run before Hamilton hit another triple to put the Raiders up for the remainder of the half as Mario Fleming hit back-to-back layups and Jackson added to the barrage to put Three Rivers up 36-30 with 5:16 left in the first half.
A Hamilton pair of free throws put the Raiders back up seven, 40-33, in the waning minutes of the first half before Olney pulled to within 42-38 heading into the locker room
There were eight lead changes and four ties in the first half. Three Rivers never lost the lead after the teams left the locker room.
Alan Dale - Daily American Republic