3rd Time Not the Charm for St. Bernard

The names of the stars changed but the result stayed the same Wednesday night when St. Bernard played Mater Dei in a Southern Section 5-A semifinal at Ocean View High School in Huntington Beach.

The first time the two teams tangled, Mater Dei’s Kevin Rembert sank St. Bernard with a basket with two seconds left. The second time, Mark Ramstack’s lay-up gave Mater Dei an overtime win.

It was a 6-3 junior shooting guard named Dylan Rigdon who broke hearts at St. Bernard in Wednesday’s third and most important match-up. Rigdon scored 25 clutch points and nailed a trio of three-pointers to lead his team to a 87-70 win and denied the Vikings a chance to unseat Mater Dei from the 5-A final for the first time in three years.

St. Bernard took a 21-18 lead in the first quarter on the inside scoring of 6-10 junior center Ed Stokes (21 points) and senior forward Eric Nelson (14 points).

But that lead evaporated in the second half, as Rigdon and Ramstack (29 points) engineered three long Mater Dei scoring runs with accurate outside shooting and aggressive drives to the basket.

The Vikings trimmed Mater Dei’s lead to two points at the start of the third period when the sky rained three-pointers. Rigdon’s 22-footer put the Monarchs up, 44-36, but St. Bernard guards Keith Brown and Mark Raveling answered when each connected for a pair of treys.

Then Mater Dei (20-7) sandwiched 12 unanswered points in the fourth quarter between an off-balance jumper by Stokes and an 18-footer by Raveling. Rigdon’s three-pointer midway through that period sealed the trip to the finals for Mater Dei.