Crescent City Christian pulls away from Riverside in Division IV quarterfinals

METAIRIE – Championship teams respond when challenged.

Early in the third quarter, Riverside Academy, with a championship pedigree of five state titles to its credit under Timmy Byrd, went on a big run to pull within two points of top seed Crescent City Christian.

With a championship pedigree of its own, the Pioneers simply became tougher, more emboldened, going on a decisive 14-0 run and went to defeat the eighth-seeded Rebels 78-63 at The Cabin in the LHSAA Division IV state quarterfinals.

The big run by the Pioneers gave them a 16-point lead and they would maintain it the rest of the way as Riverside got no closer than 13 points in the fourth quarter.

Crescent City Christian utilized its superior size to gain a 16-9 advantage at the end of the first quarter. John Kelly had five points, two rebounds and two blocked shots in the quarter as the Pioneers outrebounded the Rebels 9-4.

The Pioneers expanded the lead to 15 points twice in the second quarter at 31-16 and 36-21 but the Rebels closed the half on an 8-0 run. Byron Joshua scored 12 points in the half, including eight in the second quarter for the Pioneers while Jordin Farrell had 11 points. Gage Larvadain had 10 points for Riverside. The Rebels shot just 4-for-13 from the free throw line.

Seniors Farrell and Joshua were electric, each scoring 25 points. Farrell added 13 rebounds and three assists while Joshua had four steals.

“Anything I’ve got to do for my team I will do it,” Farrell said. “If I have to score two points with 100 rebounds, I’ve got to do it. No matter what it is, I will do it for my team. It was as game of runs. We made our run to begin the game, they made their run but at the end of the day, we stuck to our principles and settled things down. The crowd was amazing tonight.”

Joshua never doubted that the Pioneers would win.

“We stuck to our pressure,” Joshua said. “We executed down the stretch. We all came together after their run and said we would finish it off and that is what we did. It would be big to win a state title in this division. Crescent City is my home, my family.”

Larvadain, a junior, scored 26 points for the Rebels before cramping in the fourth quarter. Tairyn Lockhart had 12 points and DeJuan Daniels had 10 points and 11 rebounds, David Reynaud had 10 points. The Rebels committed 17 turnovers.

“We didn’t lose the game because of rebounding, we lost the game because of too many unforced turnovers,” Byrd said. “You’ve got to give Crescent City all the credit. Their effort was really good. I think that’s the best I’ve seen them play all year. Their guys were locked in. They were focused. They made shots. When we got to 42-40, we had consecutive turnovers and they went on a 14-0 run.”

The Pioneers overcame 22 turnovers by dominating the boards with superior size, outrebounding Riverside 43-25. Riverside hurt itself by making just 7-of-19 free throw attempts while Crescent City Christian was 16-of-22 from the charity stripe.

“Coach Timmy Byrd does a great job with that group but my guys came through and they executed. We worked on rebounding all week. We worked on transition defense all week. I couldn’t be more proud of those guys. That team is really good. They might not be the biggest team in the world but they are very good offensive rebounding team. We were able to have our way a little bit. This is how they have been playing all year. They’ve been consistent.”

Crescent City (21-13), which won a Division V state championship in 2017 and has played in the title game the last three seasons, will host No. 4 St. Mary’s in the semifinals.

“We want everyone to pack The Cabin, we want everybody to wear their blue and come support the Pioneers.”

The future looks good for Riverside (14-15) despite the loss.

“We’ve got just two seniors,” Byrd said. “We think we’re going to be really good next year.”

Final
CCC 16 20 22 20 — 78
RA 9 20 13 21 — 63

Scoring:
CCC: Byron Joshua 25, Jordin Farrell 25, John Kelly 7, Glenn Rhone 7, Keane Smith 5, Kurt LaBeaud 4, Holdin Diaz 4, Landon Williams 1

RA: Gage Larvadain 26, Tairyn Lockhart 12, DeJuan Daniels 10, David Reynaud 10, Paris Holland 3, Andre Murphy 2, Herb Keys 1