Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com

With one of his teammates sidelined, senior Liam Dyer stepped up on Thursday night, as the St. Bernard’s boys enjoyed one of their best offensive games of the year.

The Crusaders hosted Hoopa in a Little 4 showdown and ran out to a comfortable 81-45 win on Thursday night, improving to 3-0 in conference and 18-1 overall.

And with South Fork getting the better of Ferndale 67-53 on the same night, that moves the Crusaders two wins clear of the chasing pack in the standings and within one win of clinching at least a share of this year’s title just halfway through the schedule.

The points tally was the second most of the season for the SB boys — eclipsed only by the 85 points they put against McKinleyville on Dec. 27 — as they took control of the game early with a big first half.

“Our squad came out and played hard on both sides of the ball tonight,” St. Bernard’s head coach Pat Shanahan said. “Hoopa hit some shots to start a nice run at the beginning of the second half, but our guys did not worry and responded.”

The Crusaders played the game without influential senior guard Prince Latimer, who suffered an injury in Monday’s game against St. Vincent de Paul, but fellow senior Dyer stepped up in his absence and had a big night.

Dyer finished with a double-double, scoring 22 points and pulling down 10 rebounds, to go with four assists.

Several of his teammates also enjoyed big nights, as Shanahan went deep to his bench with all of the SB players seeing plenty of game time.

Carson Costa continued his standout season with another big performance and finished with 17 points and severn rebounds, while Trenten Hagler had a strong all-around game and added 11 points, six rebounds and four assists.

“It was great to be able to see the entire team play some solid minutes and show each other and themselves how much their work pays off,” Shanahan said.

Garret Shanahan added 11 points in the win, which was the Crusaders 16th straight, while Tyler Hinrichs finished with 11 rebounds.

Dang Le and Burke Morrow each also had good nights and finished with eight and seven points, respectively.

No stats were immediately available for the Warriors, who dropped to 1-2 in conference play (9-10 overall) and into a three-way tie with South Fork and Ferndale for second in the standings.

While the conference championship may seem destined for St. Bernard’s at this stage, the race for the other two Dick Niclai tournament spots looks like it could down to the final night of action.

Next up, the Crusaders will play a non-conference game at Eureka on Saturday night at 7:30, with the schools’ girls teams also playing at 6 p.m.

The Warriors, who have dropped four of their last five games, will try to get back to winning ways when they host South Fork next Friday.