By RYAN ARENA

Sports Editor

Riverside sure knows how to ring in the New Year. The Rebels have yet to lose in 2008.

Riverside chalked up its third straight win on Tuesday as it defeated host Crescent City, 67-57.

“We’ve been steadily improving in each game,” said Riverside Coach Ben Wilson. “We’ve got some tough district games coming up, but we’re learning from the mistakes we made in previous games and getting stronger.”

The win was a bit of payback for the Rebels (12-9) who fell to Crescent City last month in the Riverside Holiday Classic by three points, Riverside’s last loss.

Riverside led 18-10 after the first quarter and was able to maintain its lead throughout, outscoring Crescent City in all but the third quarter of play.

Wilson, as always, stressed his team’s defensive intensity, and said that the Rebels set out to take away Crescent City’s strength: the 3-pointer.

“They really like to shoot threes. We tried to force them away from it, gave them a lot of different looks and it put a lot of pressure on them,” said Wilson.

Kane Keller led Riverside with 17 points. Spencer Simon added 13, and Jarid Caesar scored 11.

With district play beginning on Tuesday for Riverside as it hosts St. James, Wilson said that the team’s defensive play from the last few games will have to carry over – and also that it will have to turn a weakness or two into a strength if it is to do damage in district play.

“We have to limit people to one possession by hitting the boards, and we have to be able to get to the foul line,” said Wilson. “That’s a place that we’ve struggled, making our foul shots, but we have to be able to get to the line. We sometimes fall in love with the jump shot and get away from that.”

Today, Riverside will host its Hall of Fame Classic basketball event, which includes five games with an opening game tip-off of noon.

Riverside will face Dunham at 3 p.m. today.

Wilson hopes that events like this will raise the profile of the sport in the community.

“We just want to get some basketball awareness up in what’s always been a football community,” said Wilson. “We’ve got 10 really good teams that’ll be here, playing all day. It should be exciting. We want to show everyone that we take basketball as seriously as we do football here.”

The other matchups include St. Charles vs. Hammond at noon; Scotlandville vs. Christian Life at 1:30; Slidell vs. Karr at 4:30; and Salmen vs. Reserve Christian at 6 p.m.