By RYAN ARENA

After a trip out East to play in the City of the Palms tournament two weeks ago, Riverside traveled to Oregon to participate in the Les Schwab Invitational last week, its second national tourney appearance in two weeks.

The Rebels convincingly won their opening round game over Southridge, 84-61. But Riverside fell in the second round to Central Catholic (Oregon), 82-65, and the Rebels split their final two games.

“It was a good learning experience,” said Riverside coach Timmy Byrd. “The competition here was excellent. Coming off of a week that saw us play four teams ranked in the top 25 nationally, it was a tough assignment. I thought we were sluggish in the first game, and things didn’t get better. We had trouble guarding, and all of those teams can load up the floor with shooters.”

Ricardo Gathers led RA throughout the tournament, averaging 19 points a contest. Against Southridge last Monday, he scored a game-high 26 points in 24 minutes with nine rebounds, two blocks, four steals and three 3-pointers. Donald Thomas scored 17 with two blocks, four steals and two 3’s and Zelvin Smith scored 14, including a perfect 8-for-8 performance at the foul line.

RA led 35-28 at halftime, but blew things open in the third quarter by outscoring Southridge 29-12.

The second game saw Riverside fall behind 27-8 after a quarter; the Rebels fought back to make it a nine-point deficit at halftime, but never could get over the hump in the second half; Central Catholic out shot Riverside 50 percent to 39 for the game.

Gathers scored 22 points and grabbed 17 rebounds. Thomas scored 14.

Danny Brakebush led Central Catholic with 34 points and nine rebounds.

“We turned it over 24 times, and against a team like that, it’s something extremely hard to overcome,” said Byrd.

Riverside fell in the third game to Lake Oswego, 68-61, in a game that saw Lake Oswego keep the Rebels at arm’s length for the majority of the way after jumping out to a 24-14 advantage after a quarter.

Lucas Martin scored 12 points to lead RA. Gathers and Smith each scored 10.

Calvin Hermanson scored 28 to lead Lake Oswego.

The Rebels finished things out with a victory, defeating Lincoln, 60-54.

RA trailed at halftime by six but rallied in the second half, buoyed largely by a fourth quarter in which the RA defense held Lincoln to six points.

Gathers scored 18, grabbed 16 rebounds and blocked five shots. Smith scored 16. Martin scored 10.

Byrd said that his team must get its legs back with a critical stretch upcoming. A tilt with Brother Martin comes Thursday, then a huge matchup between top ranked teams as 2A’s top ranked Rebels visit the top-ranked team in 5A, Scotlandville. RA is ranked 21stnationally by Maxpreps; Scotlandville is ranked 23rd. Tipoff is for 6 p.m.

“They’ve got a 6-foot-5 wing that’s committed to ULL and a couple of bigs at 6-foot-8 that’ll make things tough for us,” said Byrd. “They can shoot it deep and they’re well schooled. We’ll need to have our quickness back and we ready to defend the whole floor.”