St. Bernard’s tops Fortuna for third

PREP BASKETBALL

Win in NCS D-3 tourney completes Crusaders’ sweep of H-DNL teams

St. Bernard’s sophomore Samantha Sundberg rises for a jump shot in Friday’s game against Fortuna. With the win, St. Bernard’s has now beaten every other H-DNL team this season. PHOTOS BY DYLAN MCNEILL — TIMES-STANDARD

Crusaders senior Aliyah Vigil dribbles against Fortuna Friday night in the North Coast Section’s Division 3 third-place game. The Crusaders led from start to finish and got a 54-29 win.

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By Dylan McNeill

dmcneill@times-standard.com

The St. Bernard’s girls basketball team responded following their North Coast Section semifinal loss earlier this week with a convincing 54-29 win over the Fortuna Huskies (16-14) Friday night to take third place in the Division 3 tournament.

Third place isn’t exactly what the Crusaders sought, but now they’ll enter into the CIF state playoffs next week coming off a win. Last year, St. Bernard’s won the Division 4 CIF state title at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento and they look to continue that success this season.

“Our players had a bad taste in their mouth after Tuesday night’s game and it really motivated them to come out and play tonight,” Crusaders head coach Matt Tomlin said. “I think you saw that on the defensive end of the court with the effort we played with our fullcourt man-to-man tonight. It looked like great team basketball.”

Friday’s win also secured a unique feat for St. Bernard’s: With the win over Fortuna, they’ve now beaten every H-DNL team this season. The Crusaders are 29-2 on the season, with both losses coming against teams from out of the area, and sits at 12-0 against the H-DNL this season.

“They wanted to be the best team in the H-DN this year, they wanted to win the Niclai Tournament,” Tomlin said of the team. “Getting a chance to play Fortuna tonight helped us complete, having beaten every team this year. Very proud of the girls for that.”

Even with the loss on Friday, Fortuna is also headed to CIF state playoffs as one of the teams advancing from the Division 3 tournament. The brackets for CIF tournaments will be announced on Sunday. North Coast Section divisions are more concrete, with teams only being able to move two divisions up or down but similar CIF rules aren’t in place and each team can be placed in any division.

“We could end up anywhere from Division 2 to probably Division 4. We could be at home or we could be all the way down in Fresno,” Tomlin said of the CIF playoffs. “We’ll be excited on Sunday wherever they tell us we’re going to go play. The girls are going to give it their all and we’re going to do the best we can to defend our state championship.”

St. Bernard’s wasted no time taking control of the game Friday — senior Laila Florvilus opened the scoring after she took a rebound coast-to-coast for a layup. Senior Jocelyn Sundberg nailed a jumper and sophomore Samantha Sundberg hit a three and suddenly, the Crusaders were up 8-0 less than three minutes into the game.

An and-one by Florvilus put St. Bernard’s up 16-2 in the first quarter as the Crusaders put together a near flawless start to the game. Junior Alyssa Boham ended the quarter with a layup for St. Bernard’s as they’d head to the second quarter leading 23-3 with the game getting out of hand quickly for the Huskies.

The second quarter was slightly better for Fortuna as they scored seven points in the period. St. Bernard’s defense was too much for the Huskies. Florvilus capped off the first half with two more points for the Crusaders just before halftime with an offensive rebound and putback layup to extend the St. Bernard’s lead to 37-10 at the half.

Fortuna outscored St. Bernard’s 19-17 in the second half while the game was already out of reach. The one-sided score allowed opportunities for younger players to get valuable postseason reps that they might not have gotten if the game had been closer.

“It’s very good for the young players to experience,” Tomlin said. “They’re the future of the program, so I really value the minutes I’m able to get young players on the court in the playoffs so that when it’s their turn in a year or two from now, the stage isn’t too big for them.”

The Crusaders did their damage in the first half and glided to the win to bounce back from their loss to Dougherty Valley on Tuesday in a convincing fashion in what could be their final home game of the season.

“You don’t know if Laila, Aliyah (Vigil) and Jocelyn are going to get another home game. That might have been the last game they played in Crusader Gym,” Tomlin said. “It was a great performance for them and if they never get to play another game in Crusader Gym, if that was their last game, then what a great way to end it.”

Dylan McNeill can be reached at 707-441-0526.