BY DAVID FOLSE II

Sports Editor

Some teams just don’t deal well with success.

Riverside is hoping to avoid joining that list.

Behind a game-high 23 points from star guard Josh Labiche, the Rebels held off a scrappy Ridgewood squad 64-49 to advance in Riverside Tournament.

Corey Fauchenx led Ridgewood with 23 points.

In what looked to be an early blowout, the Rebels (12-3) jumped out to an early 10-2 lead and led 20-6 at the end of the first quarter thanks in large part to the hot shooting of Labiche and senior Chris Fontenot, who had three 3-pointers in the first eight minutes of action.

Scoring the last seven points of the half for his team which included a half-court buzzer beater, Labiche sent the Rebels into the lockeroom with a seemingly comfortable 32-15 lead.

Not deterred by the double-digit deficit, Ridgewood (5-10) came out on fire to start the third quarter, scoring the first seven points of the half to cut the lead to 32-22. After a 7-0 run by Riverside, it was Fauchenx’s turn to play the Superman role. Fauchenx scored the final six points of the quarter for Ridgewood which also included a halfcourt buzzer beater, cutting the Riverside lead to 45-35.

The hot shooting of Ridgewood continued early in the fourth quarter and after a Lauren Duvernay bucket, the Rebel lead was cut to 45-43.

That was the closest Ridgewood got.

Riverside would embark on a 13-0 , six of which belonged to Labiche, to push their lead back to a comfortable 58-45 and secure the victory.

Happy with the victory, Rebels head coach Tommy Monier said his team must learn to play with a lead.

“I was happy with the fact that every time they got close we extended the lead out,” Monier said. “I told them that is what good teams do; when a team makes a run, you come right back and make a run against them.

“We are still not were we need to be offensively, especially when we get in a situation where we are working with a lead. We tend to bog down and get complacent and all of a sudden everybody is standing around and we don’t want to do that. We need to have five guys moving continuously. We were lucky to overcome that.”

Monier was also happy with his team’s ability to force Ridgewood to play their tempo.

“I thought the difference was in the second half of the game we were able to pick up the tempo,” Monier said. “Some teams might back it out and hold the ball, but we were able to keep forcing the issue and got a lot of easy baskets.”