Basketball Recap: Crystal City's Luck Takes a Turn for the Worse on Friday

It's hard to turn regular season success into postseason wins, a fact Crystal City can now relate to. They were just a bucket shy of victory on Friday and fell 86-85 to the Columbus Cardinals. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their prior game last Monday (79), the Javelinas still had to take the loss.

Crystal City's defeat came despite a true team effort with many players turning in solid performances. Perhaps the best among them was Dakota Rivera, who went 8-for-9 en route to 19 points along with five assists and five boards. Rivera continues to improve, besting his previous point total in each of the last five games he's played. Another player making a difference was Christopher Mena, who dropped a double-double with 16 points and 12 assists.

It was another big night for Grayson Rigdon, who dropped a double-double with 48 points and 11 rebounds for Columbus. That makes it eight consecutive games in which Rigdon has scored at least a third of Columbus' points. The team also got some help courtesy of Brody Tribe, who dropped a double-double with 15 points and ten boards.

Javelinas

Previous 5 Games

02/28/25 vs Columbus	85-86
02/24/25 vs West Oso	79-61
02/21/25 @ Luling	81-55
02/18/25 vs Marion	56-39
02/11/25 vs Jourdanton	85-64

Crystal City moved to 23-8 with that loss, which also ended their 14-game winning streak. Those victories came thanks in part to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 79.4 points over those games. As for Columbus, the win was the 13th in a row for them, bringing their record for this year to 16-2.

Crystal City does not have any more games scheduled as of now. As for Columbus, a feisty cat fight will be fought as Columbus Cardinals challenge Onalaska Wildcats at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday. One thing working in their favor is that they have posted at least 55 points every time they've taken the court this season.