ST. HELENA — The St. Bernard Crusaders of Eureka used a third-quarter surge to leave the Middletown Mustangs far behind on Thursday night in the opening round of the St. Helena Tournament for varsity boys” basketball teams.
St. Bernard overcame a 34-30 halftime lead to beat Middletown 64-52.
“They hit four big threes in that quarter, right off the bat, and that swung momentum completely in their favor,” Middletown coach Mike Mullin said of the Crusaders. “We couldn”t recover.”
St. Bernard outscored Middletown 23-11 in the decisive third quarter.
“They”re young like us and they have some good shooters,” Mullin said of the Crusaders.
Tyler Hunt”s 20 points, 16 rebounds and four steals powered the Mustangs (1-1), who play Rio Vista today at 5:30 p.m. in the consolation semifinals. Johnny Harmyk added 14 points and Dustin Peterson had eight points and three steals.
In other games Thursday:
Willits 44, Clear Lake 38
At St. Helena, the Clear Lake Cardinals made a big charge in the fourth quarter but couldn”t overtake the Willits Wolverines in the opening round of the St. Helena Tournament.
It was the season opener for Clear Lake (0-1), which hasn”t been able to do much offensively in the opening round of this tournament in recent years.
“We could not buy a bucket in the first three quarters ? there was a lid on it,” Clear Lake coach Ken Hook said. “This is the third year in a row we haven”t had a lot of success here in the first round.”
Clear Lake trailed 25-11 at halftime and 35-18 going to the fourth quarter, when the Cardinals finally began to find the range and scored 20 points ? two more than in their first three quarters combined.
“We closed to three points,” Hook said. “We had them a little worried.”
Armando Martinez scored 10 of his team-leading 14 points in the final period in an attempt to rally the Cardinals and Ryan Richardson came off the bench to score five of his seven points.
“Richardson gave us a spark off the bench,” Hook said.
Corey Dillon scored six points for the Cardinals, hitting a pair of 3-pointers.
The Cardinals draw Dixon today at 4 p.m. in a consolation semifinal game.
Girls” basketball
Santa Rosa 62, Middletown 19
At Sebastopol, the Santa Rosa Panthers put up 22 first-quarter points and never looked back in a first-round win over the Middletown Mustangs at the Analy Tournament.
“We have two young point guards and we”re going to have a lot of growing pains,” Middletown coach Marnin Pyzer said of the turnovers that plagued the Mustangs early in the game.
Santa Rosa led 22-6 after the opening period and 37-10 at halftime.
Sophomore guard Jenny McGee”s six points paced the Mustangs (0-2) and Kelsey Welton added four points.
“We need someone to step up and be a scoring leader,” Pyzer said. “And if we”re only going to score 20 points a game, we need to play a lot better defense.”
Middletown will play the loser of a first-round game between Analy and Piner today at 3:30 p.m. in the consolation semifinals.
Durham 44, Clear Lake 28
At Colusa, Julie Jackson”s 15 points weren”t enough to lift the Clear Lake Cardinals to a win over Durham in the opening round of the Colusa Tournament.
“She was on fire tonight,” Clear Lake coach Jennifer Goff said of the senior guard. “She was all over the place, she played great defense, and she was moving where she needed to be.”
Only three other Clear Lake players scored, including seven points from Sunny McFall and five by Kaila Sterbank.
Durham outscored Clear Lake 12-5 in the second quarter to open up a 25-14 halftime lead.
“They scored 10 points in transition in the second quarter,” Goff said.
Clear Lake plays Dixon today at 4 p.m. in the consolation semifinals.
Terra Nova 52, Kelseyville 35
At Sebastopol, Terra Nova of Pacifica broke out to a 13-4 first-quarter lead, then gradually added to its lead over the final three quarters in a first-round win over the Kelseyville Knights at the Analy Tournament.
“We looked better,” Kelseyville first-year coach Caitlin Andrus said when asked to compare the Knights” effort to their season-opening 68-23 loss to Salesian last Saturday. “We”re still trying to find ourselves right now. We”re doing a lot of subbing right now to see what combinations work best.”
Allyson Brown and Sam Mattern scored eight points apiece to lead Kelseyville (0-2) and Monique Santana added six points.
Andrus complimented the play of Skyler Olsen, a shooting guard who had four points against Terra Nova.
“She looked pretty good,” Andrus said.
Kelseyville”s best quarter was the second when the Knights scored 16 points.
The Knights play either Arcata or Tamalpais today in the consolation semifinals at 5 p.m.
