The St. Bernard’s girls battled back from a tournament-opening loss to Godinez Fundamental to win three straight games at the Surf City Holiday Classic in Huntington Beach this week, including a thrilling overtime win over San Luis Obispo on Monday.

The Crusaders, who will tip off conference play next week, fell 58-49 to Godinez out of Santa Ana on Friday, before getting the better of Rio Hondo Prep 56-27 on Saturday.

On Monday, CJ Figas hit a late game-winning 3-pointer in a 50-47 overtime win over San Luis Obispo, and on Tuesday the Crusaders won the consolation game, beating Santa Fe 43-36.

With the three wins, the SB girls improved to 10-4.

“I am super proud of these ladies for traveling to Southern California and finishing 3-1 against very good competition,” St. Bernard’s head coach Matt Tomlin said. “They got better as a team.”

Figas, who was named to the all-tournament team, scored a team-high 14 points in Tuesday’s win, while the always dangerous Samantha Sundberg added 12 points, Tally Williams chipped in seven points and Carli Baum had six.

“The ladies played outstanding team basketball for four quarters to earn the hard-fought victory versus a good Santa Fe team,” Tomlin said of Tuesday’s win. 

Williams was instrumental in the victory, giving her teammates a big spark off the bench and playing tough defense while guarding the Chiefs’ six-foot center.

Figas scored a team-best 17 points in the overtime win on Monday, including her big game-winning shot, while Sundberg added 13 points and Baum and Kayla Maples each had eight points.

According to Tomlin, it was an outstanding basketball game between two good teams with little to separate them the entire game.

“Our girls stayed together and kept fighting all the way to the end,” the coach said.

Figas’ big shot came with just 16 seconds remaining.

Sundberg finished with a double-double in the tournament-opening loss, scoring 14 points and pulling down 10 rebounds.

Figas had seven points and 12 boards in that game, while’s Baum added nine points, Alyssa Boham scored eight points snd Macie Wantt chipped in six points.

Check out video highlights of Figas’ big shot above …

Submitted photo

Turnovers proved costly and were the “deciding factor” in the game, according to Tomlin, whose team gave up possession 32 times.

“(We) simply could not overcome our own mistakes,” the SB coach said. “We did not coach good enough to win and we did not play well enough to win.”

The SB players, however, would respond the following day and pulled out a comfortable 29-point win over a Rio Hondo team that is higher ranked than Godinez.

Tomlin described it as an “impressive team performance” with 10 of the 11 St. Bernard’s players scoring and everybody playing solid defense.

Next up, the Crusaders open the Little 4 at home against Ferndale on Friday of next week.

“We are looking forward to a five-day break to conclude the holidays, and then we will get back to work to prepare for the league season,” Tomlin said.