By ADRIAN STEWART CO

Kiefer Ravena and the Shiga Lakes rolled to their ninth consecutive win in the Japan B.League Division 2 after an 89-80 victory over the Niigata Albirex BB at the City Hall Plaza Ao-re Nagaoka on Saturday night, January 20.

The former NLEX Road Warriors guard finished with 22 points, including six timely points in the fourth quarter, to go with five assists, four rebounds and two steals for the Lakes.

Brock Motum tallied a double-double of 26 points and 10 rebounds, while Ryan Kriener and Kazuki Miyamoto ended with 10 points each as the Lakes improved to a 24-7 win-loss slate.

“It became a completely different game in the second half,” Shiga head coach Danny Gomez rued.

“In the first half, we were able to grab rebounds and play at a fast pace, but we were not able to do that anymore in the second half,” he said.

“Luckily, when Niigata was catching up in the fourth quarter, my experienced players like Ravena and Motum stepped up and showed their experience. Everybody worked hard,” he added.

Stacy Davis had a double-double of 18 points and 14 rebounds. Kyle Hunt chipped in 17 points and 11 rebounds, while Tony Criswell and Katsumi Takahashi had 11 and 10, respectively, as Niigata dropped to 4-27.

Meanwhile, Roosevelt Adams continued to impress for the Yamagata Wyverns as they hacked out a 93-85 victory over the Aomori Watts at the Sanyu Engineer Sports and Culture Center.

The former Terrafirma Dyip guard finished with a season-high of 17 points, with three outside shots, to go with five assists and four rebounds as the Wyverns moved up to 18-13.

James Bell top-scored for Yamagata with 23 points to go with eight rebounds and four assists, while Timothy Holyfield, Shinya Murakami and Michael Finke delivered 13, 12 and 10 points, respectively.

On the other hand, Gregory Slaughter tallied two points in seven minutes as the Rizing Zephyr Fukuoka (21-10) suffered a 79-63 defeat to the Division 2-leading Altiri Chiba (28-3)./ASC, WDJ