Riverbank girls basketball makes second straight section semifinal, led by senior duo

The Riverbank girls basketball team’s senior leaders refuse to lose.

Chancis Gamez and Rayne Tago were determined to will their team back to the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV semifinals Thursday night against fellow Trans Valley League member Hughson. To say they led the Bruins to just a victory would be an understatement.

The duo led an all-around dominant effort, powering fourth-ranked Riverbank as it took down the No. 5 Huskies, 63-36. Riverbank will play top seed Colfax Tuesday on the road.

“We have six seniors on the team,” Gamez said. “Everybody wants to have success this year because it’s most of the team’s senior year. Everybody is close, so everybody wants it for each other.”

Gamez is the definition of a pure point guard. She said she doesn’t need to always score. If the team is scoring and winning games, she is happy. A broken wrist during an AAU tournament three years ago caused her to miss her freshman season at Enochs. She joined the Bruins as a sophomore and has been the team’s steadying force for three seasons, running the show and setting the table for her teammates. But she can put the ball in the basket when she needs to. Gamez scored her 1,000th career points in the team’s first-round playoff win over Sutter Tuesday. She knocked down a pair of threes Thursday en route to a 10-point outing.

“As long as the team scores, everything is fine,” she said. “I really just want to win and if I have to give up mine to get my team going and for everybody to win, I’ll do it.”

Tago, a forward, scored a team-high 20 points and came down with what felt like just as many rebounds. She joined the Bruins last season and immediately became the team’s paint presence when she was eligible. Tago added an element that the team did not have. Thursday, the team fed her early and often, entering the ball from the top of the key multiple times right after crossing half court. She’s quiet and humble in interviews, hesitant to talk herself up when asked to describe her game, but between the lines, her ability speaks volumes.

Together, they have the Bruins in the semifinals for the second straight season. The win also guarantees a trip to the CIF Northern California Regional Championships. It is the first time in program history that Riverbank teams made the section semis and NorCal playoffs in back-to-back seasons.

“When they are on the same page and they’re clicking, their chemistry is off the charts,” Riverbank coach Janelle Luu said. “Those two set the tone this whole week of what it means to go deep in the playoffs and what it means to win.”

Luu is the link between three of the school’s most successful seasons.

As a high school senior, she averaged 12.9 points and 8.8 rebounds on the team that went 22-5. As a coach, she guided the team to back-to-back 20-plus-win seasons with a pair of section semifinals and Northern California Regional Championships appearances.

Like any former high school athletes reminiscing on their playing days, Luu doesn’t protest when told her senior year was the program’s best in the 2010s. The numbers back it up. She helped lead the Bruins to their last 20-win season in 2013-14, before this two-year stretch. But Janelle’s younger sister Olivia would likely beg to differ, arguing that the next season, Olivia’s senior year in 2014-15, was the program’s best year, with 15 wins. Both made the playoffs as seniors, Janelle lost in the second round while Olivia was bounced after one game. Olivia did, however, win a TVL title as a senior.

“They lost like 12 games that year,” Janelle Luu said jokingly, tapping back into the sibling rivalry.

Needless to say, some of Janelle’s best times on the Riverbank campus have come on the court, whether as a player or a coach.

“To be a part of both teams is special,” she said. “It all comes full circle.They don’t understand how important it is, what kind of legacy they already have left. And I think that they’ll realize that a few years down the road but this team is special. Being the coach of it and just building a program has been hard, but it’s been so rewarding.”

Taking on a dynasty

Thursday was the 17th time this season the Bruins allowed fewer than 40 points in a win. They opened up a 20-point lead in the third quarter and led by 30 in the fourth.

“I think we’re peaking at the right time,” Luu said. “I think that we started off really strong against Sutter and then the momentum carried. … In the past, after a big win like that, we would go and have an ice bath day and a film day, but we worked hard yesterday. I think they’re locked in mentally, and the physical follows.”

Now they take on top seed Colfax, a program known for its playoff success and section championships. The Falcons finished first in the Pioneer Valley League for the past five seasons. They have four players averaging 10 or more points, including star athlete Kaia Diederichs, who plays soccer and basketball during the winter. The junior has scored 100 career goals and will likely hit the 1,000-point mark next season.

The game is a rematch of last season’s Division IV section title game, a matchup Colfax ran away with, 56-38.

“If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best, and that’s our mindset. Colfax got us, and deservedly so. They played better than us, they were the better team,” Luu said. “For our seniors, I think especially Chancis and Rayne, they want everyone to know that wasn’t us. That wasn’t who we are.”

The Falcons have won their two playoff games by an average of 42 points.

“(Colfax) is almost like a dynasty. Could you call them a dynasty yet?” Luu said.

Hughson reflects on its season

Hughson coach Tim May was appreciative after the season-ending loss. He expressed gratitude for the players who poured into the program and his assistant coach who was with him the whole way.

“I probably don’t say it enough, but I couldn’t have the success I have without my assistant coach, Lee Duron, being there and just grinding it out on the weekends with me and doing all of the stuff it takes,” May said.

He hurts for his seniors, especially the team’s leader, motor and leading scorer and rebounder, Madi Duron.

A four-year varsity player, Duron battled through a shortened spring season as a freshman, had a breakout sophomore season, averaging 11 points and nine rebounds and grew into a senior who for the season averaged a double double, scoring 14.5 points and grabbing just over 10 rebounds a night. She scored a game-high 21 points Thursday.

Second leading scorer, sharpshooter Kareena Kang, went down swinging, attempting most of her shots in the second half. Upon transferring her junior year, she added a new element to the program looking to repeat the success of their 2019-20 postseason run when the team advanced to the section semifinals as a 12 seed and NorCal second round under May.

“They bought into what we were building from that 2019-20 season,” May said. “They bought into the all in mentality that’s in our locker room. They bought into trusting the coaches, trusting each other, playing for your sister next to you instead of yourself.”

This year’s team, full of talent, heart and grit, hoped to repeat a similar run this season. It won 20 games and lost just nine. It finished as part of a three-way tie for the TVL title, its second straight co-championship, and earned a top-five seed in the postseason. After handling Union Mine on Tuesday, the Huskies ran into a hungry Bruins team.

“It wasn’t a lack of energy, it wasn’t a lack of passion, it was just a lack of execution,” May said. “We talked about this all year, you can’t make those kinds of mistakes against a great basketball team. This would have been a big win to make that next step for sure, but the TVL was (seeded) three, four and five, we knew we were going to have to go through each other and unfortunately, one of us was gonna lose tonight. For our seniors, it’s a hard group to watch go. We’ve got to start over but we’ve done it before, we’ll just keep grinding.”