Quinlan, Rivera have the hot hands

You never want to push the panic button too soon. Then again, you don’t want to fall into too deep of a hole and spend the rest of the season trying to crawl your way out.

Anna Quinlan and Alexis Rivera accounted for all eight of the Lady Blue Devils 3-pointers as Kenmore West topped Niagara Falls, 51-23, in Niagara Frontier League basketball action that was played at the Kenmore West Athletic Complex on Tuesday evening.

While some people might say it’s way too soon in the season to start labeling games as “must wins,” but for the Lady Blue Devils, who came into the game 0-3, this was a crucial game. Not only did they break into the win column for the first time this season, they also executed well and felt more like the team they knew they were capable of being.

“I think today was really important. This being our first home game I think it really made an impact on us. How we’re gonna do the rest of the season,” said senior Anna Quinlan, the Blue Devils center.

“So I think we just needed this win to open our eyes for the next couple games.”

Quinlan, who had 19 points, opened the scoring with a two point bucket off a pass from Emma Pfohl. Moments later Quinlan sank the first of her four treys to give Ken-West a 5-0 lead and something they hadn’t felt yet this season. A chance to take a deep breath and play relaxed. “Definitely,” Alexis Rivera said.

“With Anna hitting those shots, she’s one of our best shooters, it just picked our heads right up. We knew we were going to do perfectly fine if we just stuck together.”

Rivera (13 points) also had the hot hand from the outside and she drained four, 3-point shots herself.

Two of which coming back-to-back at the end of the third quarter that helped Ken-West take a commanding 43-16 lead.

“It meant a lot knowing that we could work together because it hasn’t been easy,” Rivera said. “We’ve struggled as a team to work together and I think that finally getting into the game we worked together (wonderfully). I think it was just a matter of knowing we had each others back and staying together as a family.”

After opening up the season with two losses in the Webster-Thomas Tip-Off in Rochester the Lady Blue Devils, who are dealing with a couple key injuries, were still trying to put the pieces together when they fell to Lockport in the league opener last Friday.

On this night the Lady Blue Devils (1-1,1-3) felt like they finally played they were they knew they could. For Ken-West head coach Jeff Martin the biggest key was winning the first quarter, something his team hadn’t done yet this year.

“This is the first game where we came out and played a good first quarter,” Martin said. “We’ve been struggling starting the games. So I was very happy that we came out and played as strong as we did.”

Though the score quickly got away from Lady Wolverines (0-2, 1-3) to their credit they never packed it in. They played hard and kept trying to run their plays in an effort to learn and improve for the next game.

“Yeah absolutely,” head coach Joe Tiberi said. “The effort was definitely there we just have to work a little bit better on the execution. Ken-West played and really good man-to-man defense so we just have to do a better job running through our motion offense. Running through, looking at all the options.”

Luxury Ubiles was top scorer for Niagara Falls with seven points.

Along with winning the first quarter, coach Martin was also pleased that his girls’ didn’t take Niagara Falls lightly. They played strong wire to wire and never let up, even when Martin went to the bench, every girl played like it was a one point game.

“I was very happy that we didn’t take Niagara Falls for granted,” Martin said. “They have a lot of talent. They’re well coached. I thought tonight was a huge confidence builder for the whole team.”