Streaks are meant to be broken, as was the case for the Woodland Christian High School boys varsity basketball team’s 22-game winning streak.

The No. 5 Cardinals (25-6) lost 65-58 at No. 1 Fortune Early College of Elk Grove on Wednesday night in the semifinals of the 2023 CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division V Boys Basketball Playoffs.

“We knew Fortune was a number one seed for a reason,” said Woodland Christian head coach Casey Neimeyer. “We knew they would be tough. We knew they would be active and pressure the ball. I just told our guys that we need to play our game, play composed. I think the first half we kind of stumbled around out there a little bit, weren’t clean with our game and they exposed it and got out to that early lead.”

The Cardinals defeated No. 12 Mariposa County 76-54 in the first round on Feb. 15. Woodland Christian avenged a preseason loss to No. 4 Bradshaw Christian with a 63-52 road upset two days later in the quarterfinals.

The good news for Cardinals fans is that the season isn’t over yet. Woodland Christian has qualified for the CIF State Basketball Championships which begin Tuesday, Feb. 28. Brackets will be released on Sunday afternoon.

“We just need to stick together and push through this,” said Cardinals senior Wyatt Rumfelt. “We can’t get that lackadaisical feeling of, ‘Oh, well we lost sections, states we’re gonna get ran.’ We gotta stay together and we have to just stick it out.”

The Panthers started quick Wednesday night, jumping out to a 10-2 lead. Fortune senior guard Tyrece Rose cashed a mid range jumper in the right short corner as the buzzer sounded to end the first quarter. The Panthers led 22-10 after eight minutes of action.

“I feel like we came out a little soft,” Rumfelt explained. “We definitely lost that game in the first quarter. I think if you look back at the stats, we won the second half. Going on to state, we have to value every possession, which we did for the most part in this game. But in the first quarter we kind of just let it go a little bit and didn’t have time to fix it.”

Following a Fortune basket to open the second period, Woodland Christian went on an 8-0 run to trim its deficit to six, which was ultimately as close as the Cardinals would get in the first half. The Panthers proceeded to match it, going on a 9-1 run. Fortune closed the second quarter with a 13-8 scoring advantage and led 37-26 at intermission.

“Our energy was a little low going into the locker room,” Rumfelt recalled. “(Neimeyer) just told us that ‘This wasn’t the same team that was in the game at Bradshaw. So we’ve gotta pull ourselves out of that mental funk and just get back to what we do.'”

As they have all season and throughout the playoffs, Woodland Christian started the second half strong. The Cardinals outscored the Panthers 17-10 in the third period. Woodland Christian trailed by four at 47-43 with one quarter remaining.

“As a coach, I still want to have intensity and tell them they needed to change it,” Neimeyer explained. “But at the same time, not cause panic amongst my team. So we just talked about taking care of the ball. One of our main focuses in our timeouts was we gotta rebound and keep them off the boards. They just came out and got a lot of second-, third-chance points. That was discouraging, that’s always discouraging when that happens. We did a good job making that adjustment.”

The Cardinals entered the fourth with all the momentum but had to overcome adversity that struck in the third quarter. Freshman Romello Bruhn, who matched Fortune with 10 points on his own in the third, hurt his left leg about three minutes into the second half on a fast break opportunity.

Bruhn played through it to finish with a team-high 20 points. However, you could tell the injury was affecting him for the remainder of the game as he continued to grimace while flexing and stretching his leg during stoppages of play.

Four points was the closest Woodland Christian would get to taking its first lead. The Cardinals cut their deficit to four multiple times in the fourth but were unable to get over the metaphorical hump. The game was competitive throughout but the Panthers prevailed 65-58 in wire-to-wire fashion.

“They came out and shot the ball a little bit better than we expected,” Neimeyer recalled. “We’ve watched a lot of film and we knew they wanted to attack the key. Tonight they drew us out and knocked down some threes when we didn’t get a hand up in their face. We knew we had to extend the arc and still get a hand up in their face. They really kind of drew us out of what we wanted to do clogging up the middle.”

Fortune will play No. 2 Ripon Christian in the CIF SJS D5 Finals on Saturday afternoon at Golden 1 Center.

“Fortune is definitely a solid team,” Rumfelt said. “I believe we could’ve won that game but we didn’t, so that speaks for itself.”

Bruhn scored a team-high 20 points on 9-of-15 from the field and 2-of-4 from the free-throw line with two rebounds and two steals. Rumfelt followed closely behind with 18 points on an efficient 9-of-14 field goals, adding five steals and four rebounds. Despite being in foul trouble, senior Jordan Sacramento recorded a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

The Panthers were led to the win by senior twins, the Rose brothers, who combined to score 47-of-65 Fortune points. Tyree Rose led the way with a game-high 26 points and Tyrece Rose dropped 21 points.

Woodland Christian will now practice and prepare for the state tournament which begins on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. The Cardinals’ opponent will be revealed on Sunday afternoon.

“We just gotta bounce back,” Neimeyer said. “This was a great game. We didn’t get steamrolled or anything like that so I just told them that ‘we belonged in this game, this game could’ve been ours.’ I still feel like we could beat this team. We got to go prove that in our play in NorCals. We don’t know who we’re going to be matched up with.

“It might be a tough matchup, but I think the way we’re playing right now, we can really compete with anyone.”