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Ripon avenges loss to RC in surprising blowout
Ripon-Ripon Christian boys basketball
Ripon's Landon Gillespie (2) shoots as Ripon Christian's Thys Van Der Hoek (21) and Griffin De Abreu defend. - photo by GARY JENSEN/GreatShots.SmugMug.com

Ripon Christian posted no field goals in the first quarter Wednesday night and made just five shots from the field through three periods. Visiting Ripon had no such shooting woes in a 64-33 Trans-Valley League win that snapped an 11-game winning streak for Ripon Christian.

The two teams wrap up the TVL schedule on the road Friday night at 7, with Ripon (9-2 TVL, 14-13 overall) traveling to Livingston and the Knights traveling to Hughson. Ripon Christian, which already has at least a share of the league title, can claim the outright crown with a win Friday.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a game where I coached at Ripon High where the margin of victory has been this high against RC,” Ripon coach Justin Graham said. “They’re always good, they’re always well-coached. I think we just had their number tonight.

“Our guys put in the work. We hold breakfast club which are shooting practices twice a week at 6 in the morning where we do nothing but shoot. It’s optional and a lot of our kids come out because they want to get better.”

The Indians hit eight from beyond the arc.

“We had quite a few 3-pointers,” Graham said. “But when you look at our stats online we don’t look like a very good shooting team. But lately, our guys have been shooting with confidence. Maybe five games ago Bronson (Burrow) hadn’t attempted a 3-pointer and now he is one of our best shooters.”

The Knights (10-1, 18-7) tied the game at 2-2 on a pair of free throws by Roger Postmus and from that point on it was all Ripon. The Indians closed the first quarter on a 14-0 run behind nine Nolan Young points and kicked off the second period with a 7-0 spurt top make the total run 21-0.

Young finished with13 points and 16 rebounds, reaching the double-double threshold not even two minutes into the second half.

Ripon Christian came away with a 72-61 win when the two teams met on Jan. 20, and Ripon had not forgotten.

“After the last game we knew what we wanted to do,” Young said. “We wanted to get revenge. We tweaked a few things in our game plan from last time and we executed well.

“It goes back to our coaching and all of our training. I am thankful for all the players and all the coaches.”

Bronson Burrow scored in every period for the Indians, finishing with a double-double at 16 points and 10 rebounds.

“The last time we played them, they had a crazy good game,” Burrow said. “So coming out and getting a game like this was definitely in our mindset.

“We have been practicing hard and we played super well and I am really proud of the guys.”

The Knights’ Eli Terpsma led all scorers with 18 points. None of his teammates scored more than four points with Thys Van Der Hoek grabbing eight rebounds.

“We didn’t shoot well, we didn’t rebound well and we didn’t pass well,” Ripon Christian coach Mark Hofman said. “That happens sometimes.”

 

Junior varsity

Ripon Christian 54, Ripon 43

The Knights’ Jace Beidleman led all scorers with 19 points and teammate Luke Crivello added 16 points.

Bradley Reedy led the Indians with 16 points Dawson Down chipped in 11 points.