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St. Bernard finds a way to win again, beats Long Beach Poly 52-40 in state playoffs

Junior guard Tyler Rolison scored 19 points in the Vikings' victory.

PLAYA DEL REY, Calif. — Under first year head coach Tony Bland, this year's St. Bernard boys basketball team knows how to win. Fresh off of a Division 1 Southern Section boys basketball championship, the Vikings overcame a 13-point first half to beat Long Beach Poly 52-40 in the first round of the Division 1 CIF State playoffs on Tuesday. 

"We didn’t execute like we wanted to early, but they came together and they fought back and they did what they needed to do to win the game," Bland said.

St. Bernard may have only scored 13 first half points, but Long Beach Poly mustered just 16 themselves. After halftime, the Vikings began the third quarter on a 10-2 run and then started the fourth on a 7-0 run. From there, they never relinquished the lead.  

It's been like that all postseason. When it gets to crunch time, St. Bernard has repeatedly come through.

In the second round of the Division 1 Southern Section playoffs, junior guard Darius Carr drilled a buzzer-beater to knock out West Ranch. In the semifinals on the road against St. Anthony, St. Bernard started slow like they did on Tuesday, but battled back to win 66-64 thanks to 18 points and two clutch free throws from Jason Hart Jr. 

The Vikings keep finding ways to win and Tuesday was no different.

Carr used two crisp crossovers to get to the rim and finish with his right hand to deal Poly the crippling blow. His bucket came with 1:10 to play and put the Vikings ahead 48-40.

St. Bernard junior guard Tyler Rolison scored 17 of his 19 points in the second half and sophomore forward Kendyl Sanders scored 13 points including a crucial 3-point play in the fourth quarter. Carr finished with eight points. 

Bland attributes his team's success late in games to playing a tough regular season schedule. 

“We had a lot of challenging games this year," he said. "We fought through a lot of adversity and we’ve grown from every scenario. We want to Vegas and [The Classic at] Damien. We played a national schedule. The reason we did that was so when we get in these moments, we’ll be able to persevere. I think the guys did a great job of that tonight."

Long Beach Poly senior guard Christian Watson led all scorers with 20 points in defeat. Sharpshooting Jackrabbit senior Gabe Cummings was held scoreless.

St. Bernard will host Southern Section Division 2AA champion Village Christian, the No. 12 seed in the Division 1 state playoffs, in the second round on Thursday.