Photos by Ray Hamill/HUmboldtSports,com – Seth Dyer in action for St. Bernard’s at the Logger Classic on Thursday.

It was a good opening day for the local teams at the 2023 Logger Classic, with St. Bernard’s, McKinleyville and Eureka all winning their games.

The Crusaders got the tournament off to an exciting start with a 64-63 overtime win over Shasta, while the Panthers followed that with 62-21 win over Richmond and the Loggers capped a good day for the H-DNL with a big 89-18 victory over Upper Lake in the final game of the day.

It was also a good day for the South Fork boys, who won for the second straight day at their own Gene Cotter Memorial Tournament in Miranda.

The Cubs comfortably beat Point Arena 62-31 and improved to 8-2 on the season.

The Hoopa Warriors were also in action in Miranda and dropped to 1-1 in tournament play with a 53-37 loss to Averroes.

The loss ended a three-game winning streak for Hoopa, which dropped to 3-6.

The Del Norte boys were also in action at the Anderson tournament and beat Central Valley 60-35.

After staring the season 1-4, the Warriors have now won three straight games to go to 4-4.

They will continue tournament play with a semifinal showdown against the host school on Friday night at 8.

The Fortuna Huskies, meanwhile, played Enterprise and lost 55-53 to drop to 4-4.

At the Logger Classic, sophomore Liam Dyer hit a big 3-pointer for St. Bernard’s late in regulation to send the game to overtime and the Crusaders edged Shasta 7-6 in the extra period for the win.

“We’ve been having great practices and every single player has been working their tails off and it showed tonight,” SB head coach Issac Gildea said. “Our defense was there. Shasta’s a good basketball team and we knew it was going to be a close game.”

Seth Dyer continued his outstanding early season form and finished with 34 points in the win, shooting 13 of 22 from the floor, as the Crusaders improved to 6-1.

Freshman Garrett Shanahan continued to be a force on the boards and finished with 14 rebounds, while Wyatt Simoni added nine boards on the same day it was announced he was named Big 4 Offensive MVP in football.

“Wyatt Simoni has really turned into an intelligent basketball player,” Gildea said of the multi-sport senior standout.

Aaiden Burris missed the second half with an injury but continued to impact the game from the bench.

“Even though he got hurt, his energy was fantastic from the bench,” said Gildea, who added “Our team is rolling right now. Everybody contributed.”

Burris will likely miss Friday’s game against McKinleyville at 6 p.m. but isn’t expected to be sidelined too long.

The Panthers, meanwhile, improved to 7-4 with a comfortable victory over Richmond.

Nick Maher paced the Mack offense with 13 points and helped set the early tone with 10 points in the opening quarter.

Talen Townsend also had a good game and finished with 10 points, while Cole Armstrong was huge on the boards and pulled down 17 rebounds to go with eight points.

Justin Wells chipped in nine points in the win.

Eureka’s Elijah Estrada also continued his impressive start to the season with a game-high 20 points in his team’s win, while teammate Jahmil Rippy added 16 points and Prince Latimer finished with 11 points.

It was the team defense, however, that set the tone as the Loggers held their opponents to just 18 points for the game.

“We had great intensity on defense and shot the ball well to get the lead,” assistant coach Andrew DeHart said.

Jerome Lyons had a big game off the bench and “seemed to be everywhere on the court,” according to DeHart.

The industrious junior forward finished with 10 points, as the Loggers improved to 6-3.

Estrada and Rippy both shot well from the outside, while Nelson Botzler-Washington helped get his team off to a fast start with six of the Loggers’ first nine points.

“It was a team effort on both sides of the ball,” DeHart added.

The Loggers will continue tournament play against Richmond on Friday at 7:30 p.m.

At Miranda, the ever-dangerous Tommy Rotbergs led the Cubs with 22 points in their win over Point Arena, while teammate Trevor Hunt also continued to impress and added 13 points.

“We came out with big energy and were really impressive the whole time,” South Fork head coach Taylor Morrow said. “We are back playing the type of basketball I like.”

The win lifted the Cubs to 2-0 in tournament play and secured a place in Saturday’s championship game.