Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com

By Ray Hamill — An otherwise disappointing week ended on a high note for the Eureka girls basketball team.

On Saturday night, the Loggers hosted St. Bernard’s in non-conference action and beat their crosstown rivals in overtime, 54-52.

The win comes on the heels of back-to-back losses to Arcata and McKinleyville this week, and right after they received the news that they would have to forfeit two earlier games because they had inadvertently fielded an ineligible player, including a Big 5 game against McKinleyville.

On Saturday night, however, they came ready to play against the Crusaders.

“Our defense was the story tonight,” said head coach Cliff Napoleon, whose team played a second overtime game in 24 hours. “They’ve got some deadly players on their team and I thought we did a great job limiting them to one shot.”

Junior Tiarah Maualuga hit a game-tying basket in the final minute of the fourth quarter to force the overtime, and the home team would outscore the visitors 5-3 in a low-scoring extra period.

The loss for the SB girls was just their second in their last 10 games as they dropped to 15-6.

“Unlike (at) McKinleyville (on Friday), we did an excellent job in OT understanding game situations when we have a lead,” Napoleon said.

Tiarah Maualuga scored a team-high 15 points in the win, while Violla Kingsang — whom Napoleon describes as “our little spark plug” — added 13 points.

Samantha Sundberg scored a game-high 19 points for the Crusaders, who had four players score in double digits on a balanced night for the team.

CJ Figas added 12 points, Carli Baum had 11 points and Macie Wantt finished with 10.

Nashya Williams also impressed for Eureka and finished with nine points and double digits in rebounds.

Eureka’s Madelyn Fazio chipped in seven points and made her presence felt on the other end of the floor with a big game defensively.

All in all, it was a good response by the Loggers after the week they had.

“It was a team win with multiple players putting in quality minutes,” Napoleon said. “It was close the entire game and any one of us could have have won.”

With the win, the Loggers improved to 13-8.