By RYAN ARENA
L’Observateur

Their spot in the “big dance” long ago secured, Riverside won’t officially begin the postseason until next week.

That said, the Rebels are arriving there a little early mentally, said RA coach Bill Stubbs, as his team prepares to host Carver Friday night for its district and regular season finale.

“We had a spirited practice (Monday), and that’s encouraging,” Stubbs said. “We’ve laid down a challenge as a coaching staff to our kids, to turn up our timetable and reengage our focus level. I do think we’ve caught ourselves looking ahead a little bit. We want to approach this like a postseason game.”

Stubbs emphasized he isn’t calling his players out for the Rebels’ performance in the two weeks following their win over Newman; Riverside, after all, captured wins of 40-0 and 49-6 over South Plaquemines and Sophie B. Wright, respectively.

But he also said he knows he is far from the the only one in the Riverside locker room who aspires for the team to be playing on the Superdome turf for this season’s final weekend.

The top two teams in the Division III select bracket will draw byes, and currently the power ratings have Riverside just outside of that range. Whereas last year the Rebels drew the No .8 slot — and a tough matchup with No. 9 St. Thomas Aquinas, resulting in an upset Rebels loss in the first round — this season Riverside is ranked third behind Calvary Baptist and Catholic-New Iberia. That would result in a game against the No. 14 seed in the bracket.

Like South Plaquemines, Carver has played Riverside tough in past seasons. Two years ago, Carver bested Riverside in a shootout, 46-43. Last season, the Rebels won by two scores, 35-22, but it was a game RA led 27-22 in the fourth quarter before salting it away with a late score.

“They’ve played very hard against us,” Stubbs said. “They’ve been tough.

“The first thing about Carver is you realize they’re very athletic. They’ve got good skill players on both sides of the ball, and that always makes a team dangerous.”

The Rebels will have a size advantage up front, something that’s become the norm.

“When you look at what our guys are doing up there … our defense is starting to become a very good unit,” Stubbs said. “It’s giving us a tremendous advantage, and in this recent stretch, they’ve taken it to another level. Hopefully, they wear that like a badge of honor.”

A victory Friday night would accomplish two things for Riverside. The first is an undefeated regular season, and the second is an outright District 8-2A championship.

That district crown was on the Rebels’ list of preseason goals, Stubbs said. The undefeated mark, meanwhile, would be nice, he said, but hasn’t been at the forefront of his team’s mind.

“It’s a nice thing to talk about, but the bottom line is it gets you nothing,” he said. “You don’t get a trophy for going 10-0.”