Roosevelt gallops past Kaiser in OIA East opener, 84-33

Roosevelt's Sharice Kawakami puts up a shot against Kaiser. Greg Yamamoto | SL

Roosevelt got out of the gates quickly against Kaiser and kept the pressure on throughout both offensively and defensively, rolling to a 84-33 win to open their OIA East campaign.

Keala Quinlan set the pace early for the Rough Riders, scoring 10 points in the first quarter before having to sit out most of the second after picking up her second foul. Roosevelt barely skipped a beat with their post on the bench however, as the guard tandem of Sharice Kawakami and Starr Rivera put on a shooting display from the perimeter, to the tune of 4 three-pointers in the second period alone.

Roosevelt led 51-20 at halftime.

"I guess we gotta not take anybody easy or anything, put them away early and finish it off from there." said Rivera, when asked about the fast start to the game.

And the Rough Riders definitely did put the Cougars on the ropes at the half, particularly from long range, as they hit six baskets from distance in the half alone, four of them courtesy of Rivera, who scored 13 points in the second alone, a point more than the Cougars did as a team during the same stretch.

"I'm not sure, I guess we were hot tonight." laughed Rivera.

Intermission did little to slow the Rough Riders pace, as they continued to build the margin, going on an 12-0 scoring spurt that lasted nearly five minutes. The Cougars did not score their first basket of the thrid quarter until the final minute of the period, coming on Briana Halemanu's layup in transition.

Quinlan again made her presence felt in the second half, pouring in 10 more points to close out the contest with 20, just one shy of Rivera, who dropped 21 to lead all scorers.

"We try to get the ball whenever we can (to our bigs), and try to get contributions from them." said Kawakami.

Roosevelt did eventually ease up somewhat, if only on the personnel side, playing their reserves for a good portion of the final quarter, all the while maintaining a very uptempo pace.

Speaking of pace, the frenetic style applied by the Rough Riders wasn't limited to just offense, as presses of both the full and half court variety defensively gave the Cougars' fits, with the Rough Riders forcing 16 steals in the game.

Devyn Kauhi contributed six of those thefts, to go along with 6 points, 2 blocks and 3 rebounds.

Kaiser got a 10 points and 2 assists from Roselyn Shimaoka, and Chantelle Arce added 9 points, including 2 threes.

Reach Brien Ing at [email protected].