Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – St. Bernard’s senior Laila Florvilus

By Ray Hamill — Defending conference champions St. Bernard’s are the favorites to win the Little 4 championship in boys and girls basketball, according to our recent readers poll.

Last week, we asked Humboldt Sports readers who they think will win this year’s two conference championships, and the Crusaders received more votes than any other school in both polls.

The St. Bernard’s girls, who are the defending Division-4 state champions, are off to a flying start this year with victories in 14 of their 15 games so far.

And that on-court dominance is reflected in our poll results.

The Crusaders pulled in a whopping 81 percent of all votes cast, making them the clear frontrunners in our readers’ eyes.

Fresh off their overtime victory over Fortuna on Tuesday night, the Ferndale girls are the second favorites, according to the poll.

The Wildcats, who have been playing some outstanding defense recently and are 10-4 heading into conference play on Thursday night, received 11 percent of the votes.

Rounding out the poll results, Hoopa received seven percent of the votes and South Fork one percent.

The Warriors are 7-6, while South Fork is 3-4.

The girls Little 4 gets under way with a pair of games on Thursday.

The Crusaders open on the road at Ferndale, while Hoopa travels to South Fork.

The boys’ poll results, meanwhile, were not quite as one-sided, although the Crusaders are the favorites to win that championship as well.

The SB boys, who have won seven of their last eight games and are 9-3, received an overwhelming 49 percent of the votes cast.

The Hoopa Warriors, who are one of the hottest teams in the entire H-DNL coming into conference play, are the second favorites after receiving 26 percent of votes cast.

The Warriors are 11-4 after falling to Weed (68-54) on Tuesday night in their final pre-conference game.

They had won 10 of their previous 11 games coming into that matchup.

Rounding out our poll results, the South Fork boys received 13 percent of the votes cast and Ferndale received 12 percent.

Either way, it should be s competitive race for the championship and the three conference spots in the Dick Niclai tournament.

South Fork is 9-4, while Ferndale is 4-7.

The boys conference gets under way on Friday night, when Ferndale plays at St. Bernard’s and Hoopa hosts South Fork.

A big thank you to everyone who took the time to vote.