AV Sports - CIF Championships

	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q3	Total
Rosamond	8	19	10	14	51
St Bonaventure	13	20	6	5	44

By Staff writer J. Facey

The Rosamond Roadrunners boys basketball team are the 2008 Southern Section Division V-A Champions after an inspired 51-44 win over the St. Bonaventure Seraphs at Colony High School in Ontario California on Friday night.

The Roadrunners excised some demons by making their second consecutive trip to the CIF Divisional Championships count after a disappointing 49-44 loss to Desert in last years title game.

In a game that wasn’t decided until the final two minutes, Rosamond trailed by as many as 12 points in the first half and didn’t see their first lead until 6:14 of the fourth quarter. St. Bonaventure held leads of 13-8 after the first, 33-27 at the half and 39-37 after three. But the determined Runners defense refused to let them pull away and seemed to gain momentum after Raymond Bernas put in his own rebound to cut the deficit to two points at the half time buzzer. When senior Donte Day hit a three pointer to finally put the Runners ahead 44-42 Rosamond seemed to sense that the game was theirs and the defense stepped up from there giving up just five points in the fourth quarter.

Senior Jerime Gorse provided some late game heroics by sinking a field goal and five of six critical free throws in the final minutes to seal the victory. “Down the stretch if he didn’t make those baskets there’s a good chance we don’t win the game” Rosamond head coach Tim Atkerson would later say.

Top scorer of the game was the Runners Donte Day with 17 points, six rebounds, and one assist. Right behind him was Raymond Bernas with 12 points, six rebounds and four assists. Also scoring for the Runners were Christian Holden with 8, Jerime Gorse with seven, Vadal Faniel with 5 and James Thomas with two.

Leading the way for St. Bonaventure was Bo Mesick with 13 points and 6 rebounds followed by Nick Molina with 9 points and four rebounds. Also getting on the board for the Seraphs were Tim Clack and Matt Sinclair with 7 each and Isiah Burton with 4. JB Dock and Ryan Medina picked up 2 apiece.

Asked how he felt after the game Rosamond senior Donte Day said “This win means a lot to me but even more for our town and the community. Everybody always asks “where’s Rosamond?” Now that we’re the champ’s maybe we’ll be known as more than just some small desert town”.

Questioned about the players relationship with their coach senior Raymond Bernas added “We hated him at practice but love him off the court. He’s been like a father to us and we’re gonna miss him”.

Asked how he got his players motivated for the second half said head coach Tim Atkerson “These guys stood in the same locker room hallway they were in last year with tears in their eyes after the game and decided they weren’t going to let that happen again. They really wanted this and it showed in their play throughout the entire game but especially in the fourth quarter”.

Rosamond will advance to the CIF State Basketball Championships with seedings to be announced on Sunday March 2nd at www.cif.org