Strong First Half Hands Riverside Second-Straight Win

The Riverside City College men's basketball team faced off against the Antelope Valley Marauders in the second game of Ventura College's We Play Hard tournament on Friday night. The Tigers jumped out to an early lead in the first half and never looked back leading to a 63-51 win.

It was smooth sailing in the first half as Riverside outscored AVC by 20 points to set the tone. However, the Marauders pushed for a second half comeback, but the deficit was too large after the opening 20 minutes.

The Tigers shot just under 50 percent from the floor as opposed to AVC's 21.1 percent. They dominated the paint play by scoring 28 points and bucketed 16 points off 34 forced turnovers.

Freshman guard Reggie Ward led the team in scoring for the second-consecutive game with 19 points on a 7-for-8 night from the floor. He made it to the charity stripe six times and flushed five of them.

Freshman guard Darius McClain followed with 13 points, while freshman guard Tomi Adesiji finished with 11 points. He added three rebounds and two assists. Sophomore point guard Courtland Moffatt ran the show at the point leading to six assists and nine rebounds. He chipped in six points as well.  

The bench did not produce a high amount of points, but they contributed in other ways. Sophomore Jalen Monroe led the team with 10 rebounds and added two assists, a block, steal and assist.