Venture Academy boys basketball punch its ticket to SJS finals with win over Ripon
After a quarter of play, you could tell Ripon boys' basketball was in over its head.
The Indians traveled to No. 1 seed Venture Academy for the Sac-Joaquin Section semifinals and in a matter of minutes they were in an unwinnable dogfight.
“Things went wrong probably after the first offensive rebound they got,” said Dean Balcao, Ripon boys’ basketball head coach. “Rebounding killed us and you’re not going to win the game if you're giving up 27, 28 points in the first quarter. So it was our rebounding and defense kinda killed us.”
Venture Academy would go on to beat the Indians 92-58 thus punching its tickets to the SJS Division 4 semifinals on Friday at UC Davis. Here are the takeaways from the Mustangs' big-time win over Ripon.
Playing like a madman
With a 28-10 lead heading into the second quarter, the Mustangs could smell blood. Senior Toriano Woods, Jr. could really smell it as he came off the bench and took the game over. The 6-foot guard was everywhere, flying to the basketball for a rebound then soaring to the sky for a slam dunk or flashy layup.
Defensively he was just as effective. Woods was a part of Venture Academy’s front line during its full-court press and he wasted no time snagging steals whenever he could. He ended the game with 16 points and eight boards.
“In the huddle during that quarter Coach King told us to get after it, go crazy,” Woods said. “At the end of the day, that’s what brought us here. It feels great. I feel like I was the missing piece that our team needed to get us here today.”
Woods wasn’t the only Mustang playing like a madman. Their ‘Big Three’ in seniors Mario Williams Jr., Marcos Rosales, and Cameron Lowe all scored in double digits. Williams led all scorers finishing the night with 26 points, nine of them coming from beyond the arc.
Rosales added 13 points while Lowe scored 15 points and led his team in rebounding with 14 boards.
“We play hard for 32 minutes,” said Eric King, Venture Academy boys’ basketball head coach. “If you beat us you really wanted it more than us and I think right now with 10 Seniors, there's no way another team wants it more than us right now.”
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Ripon sets its sights on State
It didn’t matter what the Indians did they simply couldn’t stop the fast-paced Mustangs from scoring.
“We were trying to make adjustments to try to stay in this game,” Balcao said. “You’re going to have to rebound and play harder and beat them to the loose balls. We tried changing out defenses around but it didn’t matter what defense we played if they were getting offensive rebounds.”
Ripon was outrebounded 33-20 despite having a couple of six-footers on its roster. Leading them in boards and scoring was junior Marcus Madoski who scored a team-high 14 points and grabbed four rebounds. Madoski and a handful of other Indians’ efforts weren’t enough as Venture Academy never gave them a shot at a comeback.
The Indians’ blue banner journey may be over but the season isn’t done yet as they earned a CIF State Basketball Championship berth. They will await the playoff seeding meeting on Sunday while the Mustangs SJS playoff story continues.
“We try to make a statement every game that we're coming,” King said. “So whoever's waiting for us tonight and is lucky enough to pull off a win we’ll be waiting for you on Friday. We will be waiting.”
The Mustangs will take on No. 3 seed Natomas for the Division 4 blue banner on Feb. 23 at 8 p.m.
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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: Venture Academy boys basketball breezes past Ripon in SJS semifinals
