Submitted photo – Head coach Tom Chapman talks to his players during Friday night’s game at Middletown.
By Ray Hamill — As the old saying goes, It’s not how you start that’s important, but how you finish.
And that’s the case for the Fortuna Huskies, who despite a tough conference schedule are the last remaining Big 5 team still alive in this year’s North Coast Section basketball playoffs, boys or girls.
The Huskies, who finished 1-7 in conference and did not qualify for the Dick Niclai tournament, have posted back-to-back road wins in the girls Division-3 tournament and are one of four H-DNL teams still battling for a section championship.
The St. Bernard’s boys and girls have each also advanced to the NCS semifinals, as have the Ferndale girls.
Three of the local teams will host their semifinals.
On Tuesday night, the No. 1 seeded St. Bernard’s girls will host No. 5 Dougherty Valley in the Division-3 tournament, while on Wednesday night, the No. 1 St. Bernard’s boys will host No. 5 Mendocino and the No. 1 Ferndale girls will host No. 5 St. Vincent de Paul, both in Division 6.
The No. 6 Fortuna girls, meanwhile, will play at No. 2 Saint Mary’s in D-3 action on Tuesday.
Win or lose, the SB boys and Ferndale girls are guaranteed to advance to next week’s NorCal playoffs as the top-four teams in both Division-6 brackets move on.
Both the St. Bernard’s and Fortuna girls, meanwhile, are guaranteed at least two more games.
If both win their semifinals, they would face off in a weekend championship game at St. Bernard’s.
If either or both should lose their semifinals, they would advance to the weekend third-place game, with the winner of that showdown then also advancing to the NorCal playoffs.
Interestingly, St. Bernard’s showdown against Dougherty Valley is a matchup between schools of approximately 190 students and 3200 students.
All of this week’s games are scheduled for 7 p.m.
Both of the St. Bernard’s midweek games will be broadcast live on local radio on The Beat 95.1 FM, with Tag Wotherspoon calling the action from court-side
Wednesday will feature a busy night of playoff basketball action here on the North coast.
In addition to the games at St. Bernard’s and Ferndale, the College of the Redwoods men will also host their playoff opener against Alameda, also at 7 p.m.
Categories: Basketball, Ferndale, Fortuna, St. Bernard's
Ok, is that a misprint above….St Bernard’s is playing against a school of 3,200 students! SB has around 190 students.
What is going on in these playoffs? What happened to the days when you played against schools at your same level?
I think it is the “everybody gets a trophy” age?
Bill, CIF rewards mediocrity and punishes excellence, calling it equity. Playing schools of like size has been gone for years. And, this “equity” rule is not applied equally. We have seen right here in the HDN where a small school football team was champion for many, many years and was never moved to Big 5. Meanwhile, SB does well for a few years and is punished by being moved to Big 4 and only 4 bc a school that wasn’t doing well was rewarded by being moved down to the Little 4. It not only is illogical, it is wrong. The kids end up being the recipients of adult stupidity. Obviously a school of 3200 will have far more athletes to choose from, like almost 17 times more, but hey, that’s equity for you.