River Lions stay alive against Lightning

A big quarter from the Niagara River Lions prevented the London Lightning from closing out their first-round series on Tuesday night.

The River Lions put up 38 points in the second on their home court in St. Catharines to take a lead and then held on for a victory, cutting London’s lead in the best-of-five series to 2-1.

The Lightning had outscored Niagara 275-213 in the first two games of the series, piling up their highest point total of the season in a 151-115 Game 1 victory.

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Things went differently in Game 3 as Niagara stayed with London early and shot 54.4 per cent from the field and a crazy 57.1 per cent from three-point range.

London was much quieter from long range, hitting on nine of 28 attempts.

Royce White had a massive night for London, leading them with 25 points and pulling down 18 rebounds.

Mo Bolden had 24 points in the loss.

The Lightning played with a fairly short bench all game, using a six-man rotation for most of it. Ryan Anderson played only seven minutes.

Guillaume Bouchard and Kris Joseph each had 25 points for Niagara.

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The teams will meet again at the Meridian Centre on Friday night in Game 4.

If a Game 5 is needed, it would be played Sunday, April 15 at 7 p.m. at Budweiser Gardens.

The winner of the series will face the winner of the St. John’s-Windsor matchup.

Those two teams have shifted back to Ontario and will play Game 3 in Windsor on Wednesday. St. John’s leads two games to none.