kpomeroy posted on March 01, 2010 11:31
Rebels begin post season today with Big Piney
By KARLA POMEROY
The Riverside Rebels shored up fourth place in the 2A Northwest Conference without ever stepping onto the court Friday night. Shoshoni, with just three players available forfeited the game.
As the fourth-place seed, Riverside will play Big Piney, the No. 5 seed from the Southwest at 10:45 a.m. today (Thursday) at Central Wyoming College as the 2A West Regional Boys Basketball Tournament gets under way. A loss sends Riverside home early and a win puts them against No. 1 seeded Wyoming Indian at 7:15 p.m. at the Riverside High School gym. Tickets, as set by the Wyoming High School Activities Association for the play-in sessions are $3 for adults and $2 for students. Other sessions are $5 and $4, respectively. A tournament pass is $23 and $20, respectively.
On Monday, a coin flip to determine seeding for the Southwest hadn’t been completed and Winters said whether they were to play Saratoga or Big Piney, the focus this week would be on getting Riverside ready to play their best game of the season.
Big Piney has a 4-18 record, winning two games against 1A Farson-Eden, one game against 1A Cokeville and one game against Saratoga, the No. 4 seed in the Southwest.
“It’s been a fairly good season with the number of players we’ve had out. We need to play up to our potential. Win or lose we just want to play the best we can,” Winters said.
Winters did say he would have preferred the play-in games had been played under the old format, where Riverside would host the No. 5 seed.
“The way the regional tournament was set up was to send the four best teams from each conference. Under this system one conference could get five teams and the other three,” Winters said.
Riverside’s regular season ended with a loss to the Burlington Huskies in a score that was similar to the game in December, 65-21. They lost 58-21 in the first game. Winters said while the score does not indicate improvement he saw improvement in his team from the first game.
Winters said Burlington has one of the best defenses they’ve seen all season, noting Riverside’s lowest offensive outputs came at the hands of the Huskies. Offensively, he said Burlington’s quickness and height make them difficult to defend. Burlington also shot well from the field Saturday with 43 percent.
Riverside hung with Burlington early with the score knotted at five. They closed the gap to two later in the first period, 13-11, before Burlington finished the quarter on a 7-0 run to lead 20-11.
The Rebels were able to get the ball inside to Brynnt Wood who had 10 points on the night. He also grabbed 11 rebounds for a double-double.
Some defensive adjustments took the inside game away and Riverside struggled offensively in the second (zero points) and in the third (three points) as the Huskies pulled away.
Winters was pleased with his team’s rebounding, 27 to Burlington’s 33, and turnovers with just 26.
Riverside shot just 18 percent from the field, though, led by Wood’s 10 points.
TOTALS 27-62 7-7 65. 3-POINTERS 4-11. REBOUNDS 33. STEALS 13. TURNOVERS 14. ASSISTS 18. FOULS 11.
Clint Getzfreid 1 0-0 3, Dan Koch 0 0-0 0, Zach Christopherson 1 0-0 3, Jordan Herman 1 0-0 2, Mike Miller 0 0-0 0, JL Miller 1 0-0 3, Brynnt Wood 5 0-0 10, Brandon Black 0 0-0 0, Osvaldo DeNiz 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 9-50 0-4 65. 3-POINTERS 3-14, Getzfreid 1, Christopherson 1, JL Miller 1.
REBOUNDS 27, Wood 11, M. Miller 4, Herman 4, Black 4. STEALS 3, Getzfreid 3. TURNOVERS 26. ASSISTS 7, Getzfreid 3.