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By Ray Hamill — The first of the 24 H-DNL varsity championships of the school year was decided on Tuesday night.

The St. Bernard’s Crusaders traveled to Ferndale for a Little 4 volleyball showdown and defeated their closest challengers in straight sets (25-16, 25-21, 25-21) to secure the title outright.

And the conference crown was achieved with room to spare.

With the win, the Crusaders improved to 7-0 in conference play with two games remaining, while the second-placed Wildcats dropped to 4-3, with all three of their losses coming against St. Bernard’s.

Since dropping their first set in conference play against Ferndale three weeks ago, the unstoppable Crusaders have now won 21 straight sets in conference play.

And that makes the St. Bernard’s girls this week’s Humboldt Sports Team of the Week.

The conference championship also secures an automatic North Coast Section playoff berth and should give them at least one home game in the postseason.

Congratulations to the Crusaders and head coach Sejay Sarti, who achieved the championship in her first season in charge.

Our Athlete of the Week, meanwhile, goes to Eureka junior Claire Gast, who got the new cross country season off to a dominating start last week.

Gast and the rest of the league runners traveled to the Eureka Municipal Golf Course for the H-DNL opener and the 2024 league champion picked up just where she left off last year.

Gast remarkably has never lost a league race she has competed in, taking six victories in six races in her first year of league competition as a sophomore.

She dominated the field once again last week, beating the field by an impressive 97 seconds.

ATHLETE OF THE WEEK 

Claire Gast

Eureka Cross Country, Junior 

Gast continued her dominating run in league competition with another big win in Eureka last week, as she began the new H-DNL season in style.

The junior finished the 5K course with a time of 21:38.23 and cruised to another comfortable win as she looks to repeat as league champion this fall.

Gast and her fellow HDN runners will be back in action in Crescent City on Wednesday afternoon.

For more on her big week, see Poston, Gast lead the field at first H-DNL cross country races …

Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com

TEAM OF THE WEEK 

St. Bernard’s Volleyball

The Crusaders’ incredible run in Little 4 volleyball continued this fall with a ninth straight conference title, according to MaxPreps records, including eight outright.

During that remarkable run, the SB girls have lost just three conference games and seven of the nine L4 crowns have been achieved with undefeated campaigns.

“It was an awesome show of hard work,” Sarti said after Tuesday’s league-clinching victory.

Kayla Maples continued to impress in the win, as she has for much of the season, as did Brittyn Ikea, who led the team in kills.

Lulu Vainuku also played hard in the back row, according to the coach, and “her serves played a crucial part.”