rally the Vikings to a 68-61 victory over Old Forge<\/a> in a Lackawanna League Division II boys basketball battle Tuesday night before a raucous capacity crowd at Riverside\u2019s Patrick C. Revello Gymnasium.<\/p>\nNico Antoniacci led the way for Riverside (4-1 league, 12-1 overall), ranked third this week in the Times-Tribune Top 10 poll, with 40 points. Brayden Rose added 12 points, 11 rebounds and four assists.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so proud of my team,\u201d Antoniacci said. \u201cAll week at practice, coach talked about how we needed a competitive mindset and staying mentally tough in a good environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cCredit to Old Forge. They have good chemistry and are a really good team. So getting the win is huge for us, a big stepping stone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cameron Parker topped No. 5 Old Forge (4-1, 9-3) with 22 points. Logan Fanning followed with 18 points.<\/p>\n
Riverside coach Josh Aniska left immediately after the game for the hospital to join his wife Natalie for the birth of their first child, a boy. His team\u2019s comeback added to the happy occasion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s big for him. It\u2019s his first kid and it means the world to him,\u201d Rose said. \u201cTo especially get this win, it\u2019s a bonus.\u201d<\/p>\n
As expected, it was a tight, intense game throughout. Riverside led after three quarters, 45-44. But after Fanning and Rose traded baskets, Parker hit a 3-pointer and a jumper from the top of the key to give Old Forge a 51-47 lead with 6:27 left in the fourth.<\/p>\n
Parker hit his first five shots in the second half and had 18 of his 22 points after halftime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were doing a good job as far as keying on him and take him away as best they could,\u201d Old Forge coach J.J. Thomas said. \u201cHe got freed up a little bit and was able to get himself into a little more of a rhythm in the second half, get himself to his spots and hit some shots for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the Blue Devils went scoreless for the next 4:44, going 0 for 8 from the field with two turnovers. That enabled Riverside to come back.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely had some open looks, they just didn\u2019t go in for us,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cTwo, three or four go our way and it\u2019s a different game.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut credit to Riverside. They made the plays at the end to win the game. Also credit to our guys for continuing to fight and continuing to battle. It\u2019s a testament to our grit and our toughness.\u201d<\/p>\n
A foul shot by Rose started the run. Kyle Connor then drove the lane and hit a pull-up jumper before Antoniacci hit two free throws on an intentional foul to put the Vikings in front, 52-51, with 4:38 remaining.<\/p>\n
Moments later, Jared Jackson scored off a pretty feed from Rose. Antoniacci converted a midcourt steal into a layup before two fouls shots apiece by Mikey Schimelfenig and Rose capped the run and made it 60-51 with 1:53 to go.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just came out with confidence and started banging shots,\u201d Rose said. \u201cDefensively, we just tried to help out whoever the fifth man was, key on Fanning and whoever came into the paint and just help. We just took it a play at a time, had confidence in everything we did and slowly chip back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Old Forge, though, did not go quietly. Parker sank two technical foul shots and Cam Krushnowski hit back-to-back jumpers to bring the Blue Devils within 60-57 with 1:16 left.<\/p>\n
But Antoniacci hit two technical foul shots and Schimelfenig added two free throws. Parker scored for Old Forge, but layups by Antoniacci and Rose in the final 39.1 seconds sealed the victory for Riverside.<\/p>\n
In the first quarter, the Vikings jumped out to an 11-2 lead. But Old Forge settled down and fought its way back. The Blue Devils got to within 16-11 at the end of the first, then closed the second with a 10-2 burst to take their first lead, 30-28, at halftime. Robby Solfanelli had a 3-pointer, Fanning hit back-to-back baskets before Krushnowski nailed a 3-pointer to cap the run.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey came out and punched us in the mouth,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cBut we responded and ended up scratching and clawing back into the game, hitting some timely shots. We did a good job in that first half of overcoming the run, battling back and getting the lead going into halftime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fanning opened the third quarter with a free throw and a basket off the glass to extend the Old Forge lead to 33-28. But that\u2019s when Antoniacci took charge. The sophomore scored 13 of Riverside\u2019s 17 points in the third \u2014 including back-to-back 3-pointers toward the end of the quarter \u2014 to give the Vikings a 45-41 lead. Parker answered with a 3-pointer in the final seconds to make it a one-point game heading to the fourth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a captain and I felt like the energy was really low at halftime,\u201d Antoniacci said. \u201cSo I was clapping and getting everyone pumped up, saying, \u2018We\u2019re still going to win this, we got this, it\u2019s our time to shine in the second half.\u2019 That\u2019s what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAYLOR \u2014 Riverside gave their coach the perfect baby gift: A thrilling win against its rival. A fourth-quarter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[305,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-87488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-high-school-sports","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}