While the Riverbank varsity football Bruins and cheer squad said farewell to their senior members with Senior Night festivities, they also closed out their 2016 campaign with a win at home.
The score ended in favor of the home team, 39-6 on Friday, Nov. 4, setting a 4-6 mark for the season, the best Bruin finish in a decade, according to Head Coach Kit Jory Sr.
And the winning effort was highlighted by good plays on both sides of the ball, both on offense and on defense.
Among highlights were several touchdowns by senior Chris Certuche, playing in the final game of his high school career. He redeemed himself somewhat, having been ejected from the Homecoming game for fighting, against Brookside Christian of Stockton, a few weeks ago. He was declared ineligible to play in the games in between but came back with a vengeance to put an exclamation point on the season-ending Bruin victory.
Winter Sports Gears Up
Since football and volleyball are now officially over and with just a handful of runners still busy on the cross country course (see related story), both boys and girls winter sports got underway this week, with practices starting on Monday, Nov. 7, at Riverbank High.
They’ll be playing pre-season games and matches by the end of the month, with tournaments and other games in December, as well.
New this winter to the Trans-Valley League, both boys and girls soccer matches are being played at the same time. The change was made to align with other teams in the Sac-San Joaquin Section that have been playing in the winter. In the past, boys soccer was played in the fall, girls in the spring.
Those games were played on the soccer field, unlighted as it is, but it has had a new scoreboard for the past two seasons.
Since the time changed this past weekend, darkness will be falling earlier than fall or spring, so all the games, boys varsity and JV, as well as both girls teams, will be playing under the lights on the football field of Angelo Novi Stadium.
Meanwhile, indoors for Riverbank, there will be five basketball teams vying for time on the hardwood.
On the boys side, there will be freshman, JV and varsity basketball games, along with varsity and JV girls basketball. In the case of the boys games, all three teams will play on the same days, with freshman games starting off the trio of contests.
Soccer and basketball schedules were released last week, but wrestling is still on hold, awaiting a tally of athletes expected to turn out for the team.
