ORANGEVALE — Third-seeded Ripon Christian made the trip north Tuesday and ran into a buzzsaw in No. 2 Casa Roble and its intense crowd, losing 63-57 in the semifinals of the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV playoffs.
“It’s rough to play here,” Knights coach Mark Hofman said. “We played pretty well, but they’re a good team. We needed to play almost perfect, and we missed a lot of free throws and had a lot of bad turnovers. If we clean those up, we win. You have to hand it to them; what they do, they do well.
“I think we can play better than we played tonight. We are not done. We’re going to clean it up a little bit and see what we have left, and I think we have some left.”
The two teams slugged it out early with four quick lead changes before Casa Roble (27-4) took a two-point lead at the end of the first period and a five-point halftime lead.
Behind seven points from Jake Vander Veen (game-high 24 points, five rebounds, three steals) and six rebounds by Walter Postma (13 points), Ripon Christian (24-6) started the third period on a 9-2 run to take the lead late in the quarter on a Vander Veen 3-pointer at 38-36. Casa Roble edged back ahead to lead 43-42 at the end of the third period and never again trailed.
The Knights had plenty of self-inflicted wounds with eight missed free throws and 18 turnovers – not a recipe for victory against a hard-charging Rams team that missed five free throws – four in the fourth period – and turned the ball over only seven times.
Ace Villegas led Casa Roble with 16 points followed by Moses Oginni with 23 points and Benny Ambriz with 14.
“It was fun,” Rams coach Nathan Gilbert said. “Being at home is nice, and our heart was the difference tonight.
“We knew that Ripon Christian was a good team. We knew that they were going to give us a battle, and that they’re not here for no reason at all. They’re a good ball team.”
Ripon Christian made the championship round the past two seasons in Division V, winning both.
Casa Roble will play Golden Empire League rival Natomas for the blue banner Thursday at 4 p.m. at Golden 1 Center with and along with Ripon Christian will await the NorCal pairings announced by the CIF State office late Sunday afternoon.
