The R.V. boys team are going to play Loveland in the first round, at home, this coming tuesday. Ralston Valley is seeded number 7 in their bracket, and Loveland is seeded 10.

The Mustangs are perhaps in the toughest bracket of the tournament. They are in the same bracket as Regis Jesuit, Arapahoe, and Denver East. If the Mustangs are to beat Loveland on tuesday, then they will travel to Arapahoe on Friday the 26 for a rematch with the team that upset the Mustangs in the tournament a year ago.

Ralston Valley Girls on the other hand are guarenteed to play Arapahoe. The girls have been given a 6 seed with a 13-9 record, while Arapahoe is an 11 seed with a 7-16 record. The Mustangs are in the same bracket as Regis, Monarch and Air Academy. If the girls win they will play Air Academy this upcomming saturday. They wouldnt have to play Monarch, the number 1 seed, until the Elite 8 if they are lucky enough to get that far.

RV won their next thre games becoming 3-1, however they lost their next three games and went into the holliday break with a 4-4 record.

A loss to the Lincoln Lancers after the break put RV under .500 and it would be some time before they would get over that hump.

The league schedule started the next game against Dakota Ridge. This was one of the biggest wins of the season for RV as the league records started to unfold. They were unable to take the momentum fromo this win and lost three in a row to Standley Lake, Pomona, and Denver East.

The Mustangs came back and beat Lakewood and Arvada West in their first two home games of the league season. However a 21 point loss to chatfield ended hopes of a nice winning streak.

R.V. at this time had a 7-9 record, definately not the record that Ralston is accustom to.

They came back and got a very solid win against columbine in front of a huge crowd in perhaps their most solid game of the season. But all momentum was lost after an embarassing loss to Green Mountiain. The Mustangs at this point were 8-10 and 4-4 in league.

The mustangs since that point have gone on a five game winning streak. Including beating Pomona and Standley Lake, both teams who nipped the Mustangs earlier in the season. Also a win against Rival Arvada west in the Cats house was huge for the Mustangs. And two wins agains Lakewood and Bear creek -the worst two teams in the league- got the mustangs to where they are.

Now they have a 13-10 record, and a currently half a game behind Dakota Ridge who is second in League. That win the Mustangs had in the first league game gives them the tie breaker over the Eagles. Dakota and Columbine play tonight and if Columbine wins, R.V. will have second place in league and a lot of momentum heading into the state playoffs.

With two and a half minutes remaining in the fourth quarter Columbine led the Mustangs 60-45. The crowd was growing for the Varsity game that was about to follow this game. No one was paying a whole lot of attention to the game when the run started.

R.V. hit a three pointer with a little over 2 minutes left to make the score 60-48. The mustangs got the ball back and hit another quick three to pull it to 60-51. Coach Wassinger called timeout to stop the clock and set up the defense.

The mustangs quickly fouled Columbine. The Rebel hit both freethrows to make it 62-51 with just under 2 minutes in the game. R.V. Sophomore Davis peterson then got fouled and made the shot to recieve a chance to complete a 3 point play. He missed the freethrow and the score stood at 53-62. Rv fouled again and the Columbine player made one of two freethrow attempts and the score was 63-53.

Junior Tanner Svejcar then missed a three and Peterson got the rebound to pull it to eight points. Another timeout followed. Just over a minute remained and Columbine missed two freethrows. Svejcar then got fouled on a three point attempt. He made all three freethrows. Columbine again missed a big freethrow and again R.V. took advantage of it with a shot by Sophomore Ben Metropolis. With about 45 seconds in regulation it was 63-60 columbine.

Again Columbine missed freethrows to ice the game. Tanner Svejcar took a quick shot on the other end and didn’t hit it. R.V. got the rebound when Junior David Cross hit the big three pointer to tie the game with about 25 secends left. In a span of two minutes R.V. went on a 18-3 scoring tear to tie the game.

Columbine called timeout. The gym started to get loud and support the J.V. squad. Columbine took it down the floor and couldn’t score. Svejcar threw up a three quarters court shot and the ball bairly missed as the buzzar sounded. Overtime.

Columbine scored first after hitting one of two free throws to make it 64-63. Little did they know this would be the last points scored that night. R.V. scored on their next two possesions to make it 67-64. Columbine couldn’t score again and fouled Svejcar. He missed the first made the second and it was the nail in the cofin to end the nail bitting Junior Varsity game 68-64.