Photos by Taunya Brunton – St. Bernard’s Madelyn Shanahan

The St. Bernard’s girls made H-DNL history on Saturday morning by becoming the first-ever league basketball team to win a state championship.

Three days after their thrilling NorCal final win over Arcata, the Crusaders capped a remarkable run through the postseason with a 47-29 victory over Grossmont out of San Diego County in the Division-4 final at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento and set themselves apart from every other team in league history.

And they did it with a dominating performance against the SoCal champs.

The SB girls were clearly not intimidated by the big occasion and took control of the game with a big second quarter, outscoring their opponents 15-4 for the period to break an 8-8 tie and lead by 11 at halftime.

They were able to keep the Foothillers at arms length the remainder of the game and would finish the stronger of the two teams.

Trailing by 15 midway through the third quarter, the Grossmont girls went on an 11-4 run to pull within eight midway through the fourth.

But with history on the line, the Crusaders picked up their game again and closed out on a 12-2 run to secure the biggest victory in H-DNL history.

The state championship follows the three NorCal titles the program has won in the past 10 years.

And remarkably it was the third state title for head coach Matt Tomlin, who previously won a pair of California championships with St. Bernard’s in football.

The only previous H-DNL to reach a state championship in basketball was the Hoopa boys back in 2000.

We’ll have much more on the SB girls’ historic win and lots of postgame reaction later on Saturday.

File photo – The SB girls celebrate their NorCal championship on Wednesday.