Make it rain: Ripon basketball scores 15 threes to beat Escalon in SJS quarterfinals
Ripon High School gym exploded with excitement after every three-pointer made during the Indians Sac-Joaquin Section Division 4 quarterfinals matchup against Escalon.
Fifteen treys later, Ripon had even more to celebrate as it topped its crosstown rivals 78-65 to punch its tickets to the semifinals.
“It feels good,” said Landon Gillespie, Ripon boys’ basketball guard. “Escalon is our rival so obviously it is a big win for all of us. A good team win and I couldn’t have done it with anybody else and I wouldn't want to do with any other team besides these guys.”
Here are the key takeaways from the Indians' playoff victory over the Cougars.
Grab your umbrellas
No one could’ve expected a rain show after a tightly played first half that ended with Escalon holding a 29-22 lead over Ripon.
The Indians shook the game up in the third quarter firing threes from just about everywhere on the court. By the end of the quarter, Ripon had set a new school record draining 15 three-pointers in a single night.
“I mean I was worried in the first half but we had a big third quarter with a lot of threes,” said Dean Balcao, Ripon boys’ basketball head coach. “We shoot every day and so I've been hoping for a breakout shooting game. Third quarter all of a sudden everything just clicked. We needed every one of those threes to win.”
Leading the rain show was Gillespie who drained five from beyond the arc to finish the game with 19 points. He wasn’t the only Indian to make the Escalon pay from deep with seniors Dawson Downs, Jack Schoolland and Bradley Reedy getting in on the action.
Downs made the second-most threes, four, to finish with 19 points as well.
Every deep ball slid momentum into Ripon’s favor despite Escalon’s Ethan Garza answering back with five made threes of his own.
“Our coach always knows what to tell us during halftime and he told us to play team basketball and that’s what we did,” Gillespie said. “We hit our teammates and, like he said, to hit those big shots and we had to and that's what we did. We're all confident in each other and it’s a dream come true doing that.”
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Not enough in the gas tank
Things had gone to plan for Escalon to start its third rematch against rivals Ripon. After losing by three points in the last two meetings the Cougars jumped out to an early lead but the gas tank began to empty midway through the third quarter.
“We mixed defenses during that quarter to try to counter the shooting that they were displaying,” said Nate Bartelink, Escalon boys’ basketball head coach. “Basketball is a make-or-miss game and they just got white hot. It didn't matter what defense we were playing, didn't matter what personnel we put out there, they knocked down their shots.”
The Cougars withstood the flurries of threes for the most part being outscored 33-23 in the third quarter and only trailing by three points heading into the fourth. Despite that, they simply couldn’t stop Ripon from scoring.
They would go on to be outscored 23-13 in the final quarter.
Garza ended the night leading all scorers with 30 points, doing everything he could to keep Escalon’s season alive. The Cougars end the 2023-24 season with a 23-7 overall record the most wins in program history since the MaxPreps era.
“This team has helped us take a step in the right direction these last few years,” Bartelink said. “We’ve gotten better, we got a home game last year and won a playoff game this year. It’s hard to think about now but once the pain subsides these guys have a lot to be proud of.”
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Record reporter Shannon Belt covers sports. She can be reached at sbelt@recordnet.com or on Twitter @ShannonBelt3. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.
This article originally appeared on The Record: Season sweep: Ripon basketball tops Escalon in SJS quarterfinals
