Hudson, Dickson hit double figures but MC can’t upset NorCal No. 1 Riordan
Trips to the Bay Area have proven to be the kryptonite in the CIF Northern California Open Division Regional Playoffs for Modesto Christian.
The Crusaders suffered losses to Salesian in back-to-back seasons, falling in the open regional semifinals in 2024 and the first round last season.
They wanted this year to be different. They scheduled tough nonleague games, facing the Pitman High Pride twice and taking on other Sac-Joaquin Section Division I and state Open Division playoff teams, throwing a team with just three returners into the fire.
They got back to the Sac-Joaquin Section mountaintop, beating Sheldon for the CIF-SJS D-I title, they qualified for the open for a NorCal record 11th time and beat De La Salle handily in their first-round matchup, setting up a NorCal semifinals trip on the road to the No. 1 seed in the region.
Modesto Christian could not shake the Bay Area jitters Saturday night in the semis, as the No. 4 team in the bracket fell to top-seed Archbishop Riordan, 86-60.
Riordan (28-1) and Modesto Christian (27-7) matched up earlier this season for a game at Napa Valley College, a game Modesto Christian led through three quarters before Riordan came back to win by six. But the stakes were higher Saturday, and Archbishop Riordan answered the call. It was the more physical team, first to loose balls and rebounds, and seemingly could not miss. The San Francisco team turned each Modesto Christian turnover or missed shot into a highlight. A transition three or an alley-oop dunk was almost the norm in the second half.
In a win-or-go-home game, Riordan’s experience showed.
A pair of University of San Francisco-bound seniors led the way for Riordan. Andrew Hilman scored a game-high 24 points and JP Pihtovs added 18. Each was on the receiving end of lob passes, throwing down punishing dunks that energized the home crowd and left the visiting MC Crusaders searching for answers.
“You’re talking about teams whose core has been there for a couple of years,” Modesto Christian head coach Chris Teevan said. “You can’t fake the experience of reps.”
Modesto Christian fell behind early but battled back, trailing 15-13 at the end of the first quarter and by just three, 21-18, with three minutes, 41 seconds left in the half. But the Riordan Crusaders went on one of their many flurries over the final few minutes, capped by a Pihtovs layup to beat the second quarter buzzer and put Riordan ahead 29-22 after two quarters.
Siincere Hudson kept the Modesto Christian Crusaders alive in the first half, scoring 11 points in the first 16 minutes. He finished with a team-high 19.
At the half, Hilman had just five points with one made field goal and was held scoreless in the second quarter, and Pihtovs’ layup was just his fifth and sixth points of the contest.
But the duo exploded in the second half, each scoring eight points in the third quarter, outscoring the Modesto team by themselves in the frame. Late in the second quarter, a floater by Hudson made it a 21-20 Riordan lead with 3:02 left in the second quarter. By the early part of the third quarter, the Riordan lead ballooned to 33-22 after a 12-2 extended run.
From that point on, it seemed like every one basket the Modesto Christian Crusaders scored, the Riordan Crusaders answered with three straight. By the end of the third quarter, they were ahead 55-39.
“You can start to get into quicksand, and get deeper and deeper into a hole,” Teevan said.
The Crusaders made a quick fourth-quarter run, cutting a 66-45 deficit to a 68-55 game with four minutes left with a 10-2 run. But Riordan got stops, fast-break points and knocked down threes, finishing the game with a flurry.
The silver lining is this: Trevor Dickson, the lights-out shooter and leading scorer, who kept the team afloat early in the season before the CIF transfer sit-out period ended, netted his 1,000th career points.
Of course, he hit the mark with a made three. Late in the fourth quarter, Dickson went on a flurry of back-to-back threes. The first put him at 998, the second, just minutes later, gave him 1,001. He finished off his 18-point night with a layup for 1,003 career points with a year of high school basketball left.
“I think he’s one of the best players in California, West Coast at that,” Teevan said of Dickson. “No one shoots it like him. You see the attention he gets. I don’t want to go as far as to say it’s Steph Curry-type stuff, but you don’t see high school kids get that type of attention.”
Dickson is part of a young core that included heady, tough point guard Siincere Hudson, freshman paint presence Somto Patrick, deadeye shooter Elijah Payne and interior bruiser Seve Archuletta. All will come back next season after experiencing the thrill of winning a section title and an Open Division game and the agony of Saturday’s subpar playoff showing.
“There’s always roster construction and movement in and out, that’s just high school basketball, but I think on paper right now, we expect to be No. 1 coming into NorCal next year. We return basically the whole team. And an experience team, that has gotten to play together.”
It could be argued the Crusaders are ahead of schedule.
Hudson and the team’s lone senior, Cole Martin, missed about half the season before becoming eligible. Payne battled an ankle injury for most of the final two months of the season and played sparingly Saturday. Despite bringing new players, most without Open Division experience coming into the season, and battling injuries, Modesto Christian finished as one of the top four teams in Northern California.
It was tough for Teevan to say what the Crusaders learned from this game specifically. Instead, he looked at the whole season.
“They’re a better team than us right now,” Teevan said. “We’ve got to get older, bigger and bigger and more physical at all positions. Even when it was close, it was fool’s gold. … The whole season was a learning experience. I think we exceeded expectations.”
A lesson he hopes the team takes with it into next year.
