RIVERBANK -- The mid-term grades for high school basketball teams came out on Monday.
The initial power rankings let every team in the Sac-Joaquin Section know where they stand, and whether scheduling tough opponents in December was worth the risk. But at least every team now knows what it needs to do to either reach the playoffs or secure a high-enough seed to get a home game or two.
Riverbank's seed was pretty easy to guess. As the only team in the section to go undefeated in nonleague play, and with two league losses — both to top-seed Modesto Christian — the Bruins would be a No. 2 or No. 3 seed in Division 4.
For Riverbank, it becomes a matter of holding or improving on that No. 3 spot, which it did for now with Tuesday's 70-59 victory over Escalon.
"We've hosted home playoff games in the past but I don't think we've ever been seeded this high," said Riverbank coach Jeff Jennings, whose team is 18-2 overall and 6-2 in the Trans-Valley League.
"We look at the team rankings in The Bee and you see Bret Harte and Los Banos and Davis and Escalon and we've played all those teams. We do it to get to this point."
On the other side, Escalon (11-11, 4-3) took some lumps early against an ambitious schedule made more difficult by having several basketball players arrive late after playing on the section finalist football team.
But the strength of schedule also has paid off for the Cougars, who stood at No. 6 in Division 4 entering play.
"I thought we'd be a little further down than we were," said coach Martin Louro. "But we knew that this would be our tough stretch, with Modesto Christian, Riverbank and Ripon back-to-back."
The Cougars actually had a chance to get that one win in this game. For the most part, Escalon was able to play its preferred style, which led to it outshooting its hosts 35-16 at the foul line.
The downside was that the Cougars made only 16 of those 35 tries, which pretty much doomed its hopes despite the 20-point effort of senior guard Gino Franceschetti.
Riverbank was able to take a 33-30 halftime lead thanks to Escalon making 5 of 14 free throws in the first half, then the Bruins pulled away with a near-perfect five-minute run to open the second half.
Rolaun Dunham had nine of his game-high 22 points in the opening 4 minutes, 21 seconds of the third quarter as the Bruins went on a 20-7 spurt to a 53-37 lead.
Dunham and Kenny Veliz both hit 3-pointers in the run as Riverbank fed multiple players in the low post to either finish inside or pass outside against the collapsing defense for the open 3-pointer. Alex Reynaga played a huge role, finishing with 19 points, four assists and zero turnovers from the point.
"We're not gifted with size," Jennings said. "We're trying to find ways to create an inside presence and play inside-out that way."
Escalon wasn't done, as Franceschetti scored 10 straight points for his team and the Cougars pulled within 62-58 with 3:44 remaining. But they continued to misfire at the stripe in the final moments while the Bruins got a big 3-pointer from Veliz and hit three free throws in the last 37 seconds to pull away.
As far as the seedings are concerned, Riverbank is now finished with both Modesto Christian and Escalon, its two closest TVL rivals, and barring collapse looks to have a top-four seed secured, bringing the possibility of two home games.
The Cougars, after hosting Ripon on Friday, also have a road game at Modesto Christian looming, and may have room only for one more loss if it hopes to secure a top-eight seed and a first-round home game.
"If we got one of those three in this stretch we'd be OK," said Louro, whose team would need to beat Ripon on Friday to salvage that goal. "If we had gotten two of the three we'd be ecstatic. If we had managed to get all three we'd probably be the No. 3 seed next week."
Bee staff writer Brian VanderBeek can be reached at bvanderbeek@modbee.com or (209) 578-2150. Follow him at twitter.com/modestobeek.
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