LAKEPORT — The St. Bernard’s Crusaders had plenty to say to the Clear Lake Cardinals throughout their non-league varsity boys basketball game on Saturday in Lakeport, but not so much at the end.
In a matter of speaking, Clear Lake’s 74-38 blowout victory left the Crusaders speechless.
“They irritated us,” Clear Lake head coach Scott De Leon said of a contentious first half when St. Bernard’s (5-5) managed to make a game of it, and they let the Cardinals (10-3) know about it.
“St. Bernard’s is a pretty chippy team, pretty physical,” De Leon said. “They hung with us in the first half, but we weren’t playing our game. I told them, ‘Enough of that,’ at halftime. ‘We need to get to doing what we do.’ And we did.”
Leading 37-28 at halftime, the Cardinals, their defense leading the way, took complete control of the game. They outscored the Crusaders 37-10 in the second half.
“More defensive pressure and more offensive pressure,” De Leon said. “We went right at them. It wasn’t that we played poorly in the first half, but we weren’t being aggressive enough. We needed to take the game to them and that’s what we did.”
St. Bernard’s talking only strengthened Clear Lake’s resolve, according to De Leon.
“Their chit chat fired us up,” De Leon said. “They were losing at halftime and they were still talking. It fired us up.”
And the mood of the Cardinals as they returned to the court in the second half was simply, “Let’s just end this thing right now,” De Leon said.
Jaron Mertle’s double-double of 19 points and 12 rebounds led the Cardinals. Tyler Cerini just missed his own double-double with 10 points and nine rebounds. Darius Ford and Travis Howe added 11 points apiece while Donovan Valadez added eight points.
Slowed by a cold bug the past week, Ford was feeling closer to 100 percent, according to De Leon.
“It was nice to see Darius shooting the ball better,” he said.
Ford also had five of Clear Lake’s 22 assists.
The Cardinals also cleaned up a recent run of sloppiness with the basketball, committing only seven turnovers. Their defense benefited from 14 steals.
“The last couple of games we’ve struggled with turnovers, but we took better care of the ball this time,” De Leon said.
Clear Lake, 27-4 a year ago when it set a school record for most wins by a varsity boys basketball team, is now at the halfway point of its 26-game regular-season schedule. The Cardinals’ next 13 games are all North Central League I contests, beginning with Tuesday’s trip to Willits. They visit Middletown on Friday.
“We’ve got to be prepared for every game,” De Leon said, noting that the defending league champions have a target on their backs after running through the NCL I with a 14-0 mark in 2019.
JV game
In junior varsity action Saturday, Clear Lake beat St. Bernard’s 62-51 behind 23 points from Ethan Maize. The Cardinals are 11-1 on the season.
“It was a good win for us,” Clear Lake coach Scott Persons said. “They were a big, physical team and we handled it well.”
Joey Soderquist added 12 points in the victory while Zane Robinson had 10.
“We were able to play our subs most of the fourth quarter,” Persons said.
Clear Lake resumes league play Tuesday in Willits at 5:30 p.m.
