RESERVE — After splitting their two district games in the regular season, Riverside Academy and Country Day scheduled a tie-breaker game Feb. 20 to determine an outright District 12-2A champion.

Then, someone decided the teams were co-champions and didn’t have to play again, so the game was canceled.

Fate has intervened.

Riverside (27-5) and Country Day (25-8) will meet again in a game that is much more than a rubber match. It is the Class 2A semifinal between the No. 2 seed Rebels and No. 3 seed Cajuns to be played at 8 p.m. today at Burton Coliseum in Lake Charles.

The winner will play the winner of No. 1 Madison Prep vs. No. 8 Many at 4 p.m. Saturday for the Class 2A state championship.

“There won’t be any secrets,” Riverside coach Timmy Byrd said. “We know each other well. We just have to make sure we play our game and give our maximum effort.”

“We certainly know each other,” said Country Day coach Mike McGuire. “We’re still working on a strategy.”

For both teams, this is a matter of routine. Riverside has won the Class 2A state championship the last three years in a row and was runner-up in 2012. In all, Riverside has won five of the last six Class 2A titles.

The Cajuns were Class 1A state champions in 2013 and again in 2014, when they defeated Madison Prep, 50-47. They lost in last year’s 1A semifinal to Madison Prep, which went on to win its first title.

Both regular season meetings where highly-anticipated match-ups that didn’t quite live up to their billing. Country Day won the first one, 63-53; Riverside won the second, 81-66.

“We were missing a player in the first game,” McGuire said. “Romin Williams didn’t play, but Michael Corchiani played exceptionally well and two other players really stepped up their game. I think they fed off of Mike. Then, the second game, they had Garland Robinson, who was injured the first game. He made a big difference.”

In fact, the Rebels have not lost a game since that first meeting with the Cajuns on Jan. 22. If you’re counting, that’s 13 wins in a row. That’s not bad for a team that started the season 0-3.

“I knew we were going to be good,” Byrd said. “I absolutely am proud of everything we accomplished this season. We won all three of the tournaments we played in. We beat all the really good teams. For the second year in a row, we beat almost all the state champions from last year.”

Even when the Rebels weren’t great this season, they’ve been pretty good. They showed that in last week’s regional playoff win against Lakeview, when they hit only five 3-pointers and went 17 of 27 at the free throw line.

Whatever didn’t work that night got fixed by Friday when the Rebels shot 10 3-pointers in a decisive 81-48 win over Dunham. Herb McGee finished with five to contribute to his 23 points. Malik Crowfield hit three to contribute to his 23 points. Kash Foley had two.

There was much hype over that game, as well. As Dunham began to celebrate its regional win over Christian Life in overtime, its fans were reported to have chanted “We want Riverside.” That prompted Riverside’s cheerleaders to greet Dunham Friday with a large banner that read, “Y’all got Riverside. Now what?”

Riverside never trailed.

“It just built the fire,” McGee said. “We had it in our minds. Y’all got Riverside.”

After the game was business as usual, as well. There were no dogpile celebrations. There was barely a celebration of any kind on the Riverside court, other than small congratulatory hugs and handshakes among family members.

“We’re not finished yet,” McGee said. “We’ve got more games left. After we finish those games we’ll be jumping up and down.”

“Their goal is not to get to the Top 28,” Byrd added.

“They want to win it. They don’t want that last feeling on the court to be a loss.”