Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – CR’s Aidan Atkins-Salazar in action during last week’s playoff win.

By Ray Hamill — The Corsairs will try to keep their season going and qualify for the California Elite Eight tournament when they travel to play College of the Sequoias in men’s basketball on Saturday night.

One week after a memorable 76-66 playoff victory over Consumnes River, the College of the Redwoods men will face a much tougher challenge against a Giants team that is seeded No. 3 in NorCal and is riding a 21-game winning streak.

“We are all on high alert in terms of the threat level Sequoias poses,” said CR head coach Ryan Bisio, who’s team is the No. 6 seed. “In fact, the light has been blinking bright red all week in practice. The challenge is enormous.”

The Giants are coming off a 90-57 win over College of San Mateo in their playoff opener a week ago and will carry plenty of momentum and confidence into the big showdown.

They also have plenty of talented players on their roster.

“Sequoias has a few future pros on their team and they are very well coached,” Bisio said. “It sort of feels like you’re playing against a university, in terms of the talent and presentation of their program.”

After setting a new program record for most wins in a single season, however, the Corsairs won’t back down from that challenge and are embracing the underdog tag.

And if ever there was a CR team that could pull off the upset victory, this is surely the group to do it.

“We’re also aware of how amazing of an opportunity this is for us to test what we’ve learned over the last seven months and apply it on the highest stage yet,” the head coach added. “No matter the outcome we’re all drawn to basketball to be a part of this type of game. Have fun, be smart and let it rip.

“Redwoods is more of a mom and pop store, which specializes in custom goods. Sequoias is like a Costco — they specialize in bulk goods. On Saturday night, I just hope we can taste a little sweeter than a gallon jug of cream cheese.”

If they are to get the upset win, the Corsairs will have to bring their best game and they’ll have to come out of the starting gates a little quicker than last week.

The CR men struggled to find their offensive rhythm for much their playoff opener, before pulling away over the final quarter.

On Saturday, they’ll need to play like that from the opening tip and continue their recent stellar defensive play.

The two teams also met in the playoffs last year, with the Giants winning 88-64.

Sequoias is led by Javohn Garcia, who is averaging 20.9 points a game after transferring in from Division-I UMass the previous season.

The Giants won the Central Valley Conference.

Both teams have identical 26-3 records.

Tip off is set for 7:30 p.m. and the game will be streamed live through the Sequoias YouTube page.