Ripon Christian's Eli Terpsma leads the Knights to SJS Division 5 championship

Ripon Christian boys basketball made securing a spot in the championship game of the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section boys basketball playoffs look so easy.

The Knights demolished Vacaville Christian to get a 77-23 victory in the semifinals of the Division 5 bracket on Wednesday night.

At the center of the blowout was senior guard Eli Terpsma.

“This game, we knew we had to come out and get it,” Terpsma said. “ We came out strong and confident shooting. Confidence is the number one thing that you need to be a good shooter, and we had that tonight.”

Here’s how Terpsma lit up the Falcons and led Ripon Christian’s fiery offensive to another SJS championship appearance.

Ripon Christian has a field day from deep

In the quarterfinals, the Knights struggled offensively. After just a quarter of play, the Falcons were down by 30 points. That one-game slump opened up the doors for a splash show from beyond the arc.

“I think they were hungry,” Mark Hofman, Ripon Christian's head coach, said. “They just shot lights out, moved the ball quickly, and they’re willing to find the open player too. We played team basketball, and we like to score off assists.”

Junior Luke Crivello knocked down the Knight's first three-pointer; from there, they couldn’t be stopped. By the end of the quarter, they scored seven total threes; by the end of the game, they finished with 13 made three-pointers.

Leading the rain show was Terpsma, who finished the game with five made threes and a total of 17 points. If the 6-foot 3-inch guard played more in the second half, he was on pace to score double-digit three-pointers.

From the field to the court

Terpsma and a handful of the other Knights transitioned from football to basketball. Getting back into basketball shape didn’t take them long, even after missing the season's first eight games.

“It was difficult at first because with football, you get seven seconds of a break here and there, but with basketball, there are no breaks,” Terpsma said. “We’ve been kind of up and down to start the season, but we’ve really come together as a team.”

Since its 4-4 start and its addition of the football players, Ripon Christian has won 18 of the last 21 games. Terpsma has been an offensive driving force averaging nearly 20 points per game.

He went from leading the Knights football in tackles to leading them on the court offensively as their go-to scorer from mid-range and from deep.

“Eli’s first day of basketball was probably one of our games during the season,” Hofman said. “That's RC sports, though, we trade our athletes, and they just go from sport to sport.”

Not new to it, true to it

Rolling past Vacaville Christian gives Ripon Christian a shot at its 13th blue banner at noon on Saturday at the Golden 1 Center against Fortune Early College. This will be Terpsma’s second time playing on the big stage, as he was a part of the Knights 2019-20 SJS Championship team.

Terpsma was a freshman then and contributed four points in the Knight's 73-56 win against Stockton Christian on Feb. 27, 2020. This time around, he will be a vocal point of his team’s scoring.

The senior and the Knights won’t be shaken by the bright lights, though, after heaps of experience in high-intensity games during the regular and postseason.

“We're ready for it now like we've seen it all,” Terpsma said. “We’ve been on the losing end of playoffs, the winning end of playoffs. We’ve been in close games, and we just know we need to play together, play hard as a team, and make some tough plays with the basketball.”

Record reporter Shannon Belt covers sports. She can be reached at sbelt@recordnet.com or on Twitter @ShannonBelt3. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.

This article originally appeared on The Record: Ripon Christian's Eli Terpsma leads the Knights to SJS Division 5 championship