The reigning National Basketball League of Canada Newcomer of the Year, along with a player who looks like an early contender for the same award in 2019-20, helped carry the Sudbury Five to their first victory of the season on Thursday night.

After struggling offensively in his first two outings, both Sudbury losses, Jaylen Bland bounced back for 26 points and nine rebounds, while first-year phenom JR Holder scored a game-high 30 off the bench as the Five picked up a one-sided win over the KW Titans, 118-91 at the Aud in Kitchener.

“We won four quarters this time, the guys played great, they locked in to the game plan and I’m very happy with their performance,” Logan Stutz, Five head coach and general manager, told The Star.

Sudbury’s bench boss was impressed, but certainly not overly surprised, by Holder’s superb outing, during which the Atlanta native and former British Basketball League Finals MVP went six for 11 from outside the three-point arc, and an impressive 10 for 16 from the field overall, en route to taking over the league scoring lead at 24.3 points per game.

“I knew how good he was, because he won two championships in Europe, he won a Finals MVP,” Stutz said of Holder. “Translating it to the NBL of Canada, I didn’t know how well that was going to go, but since he made some adjustments, he has been unbelievable, on the court, off the court, in the locker room — just an all-around win for us.”

Stutz was also pleased to see Bland break out, going six for 14 from three-point land and 10 for 21 overall, after the skill Saginaw, Mich. product hit just one of 20 three-point attempts, and four of 26 from the field, in his first two regular-season games.

“You can’t keep a shooter down that long,” Stutz said. “He just had to get back up and play some good basketball. We all knew it was going to happen. It was just a matter of time.”

Marlon Johnson scored 14 points, while collecting nine rebounds of his own for Sudbury, and rookie Brady Skeens poured in 10 points and grabbed seven boards. Josiah Moore scored nine points and improved his NBLC-best field-goal percentage to 70.6 through three contests.

Jared Nickens, with 18 points, and Damon Lynn, with 16, helped to pace the KW offence, which shot 39.3 per cent from the field, compared to 45.9 for Sudbury. The Titans hit 25 per cent of three-point attempts, compared to 37 per cent for their rivals.

While improved outside shooting certainly helped, the Five did some of their best work in the paint and under the hoop. They out-rebounded the Titans 66-47, nearly doubling up on offensive rebounds at 22-12, and scored 29 second-chance points, compared to just 13 for the hosts.

“The guys were having fun, but first came the intensity,” Stutz said. “First came the work, first came them being good teammates, and the result was the fun, the stops, the baskets and ultimately, the win.”

It was an encouraging performance in another team’s building, he added, especially with so many road games coming up.

Sudbury visits Windsor on Saturday, with tipoff set for 7 p.m., then London on Sunday, for a 2 p.m. start. Trips to Halifax, on Jan. 9, then P.E.I., on Jan. 10, follow before the locals finally return home for another tilt against the Titans on Jan. 17.

“We have a lot of road games here at the beginning of the season, so to get this one and to get our first win, it’s a good accomplishment.”

bleeson@postmedia.com

Twitter: @ben_leeson