Bishop Diego roared back from a 31-18 halftime deficit and pulled out a 62-57 overtime victory over St. Bonaventure in a Tri-Valley League boys basketball showdown at the Brick House Gym on Wednesday night.
Bishop Diego is in first place at 3-0 (13-6 overall), while St. Bonaventure is 1-1 and 11-8.
Bishop struggled with turnovers and rebounding at the start and fell behind 17-7 in the first quarter,
“They are a great team but I felt we weren’t playing our best in the first half,” said Bishop coach James Coronado. “I told our guys to trust the process and keep fighting. I really felt we would play better in the second half.”
The Cardinals closed the gap, trailing 40-31 to start the fourth quarter.
Hot shooting from seniors Bryan Trejo, Lui Fernandez and Isaac Veal sparked Bishop 19 points in the final period to force overtime.
“Great drives by Trejo, great inside play by Veal, and timely thress by Fernandez coupled with some great rebounding by Nate Borgatello and Ryder Torres led to the overtime victory,” said Coronado. “The best thing about this win was that we never gave up on each other. We had multiple opportunities to point fingers or give up but we never did and I couldn’t more proud of our guys.”
The Cardinals got clutch play from Torres and Borgatello to overcome early foul trouble.
Bishop lost Qu’Ran Gossett to fouls with about 5:30 left in the fourth quarter. But both Torres and Borgatello came up with some great defense and rebounding that kept the Cardinals in it.
“Quran does a lot for us, so to lose him down the stretch was tough. I felt bad for him because he got a couple of calls that could’ve gone either way, but he didn’t pout and stayed in the game mentally. That helped us big time.”
Kaden Glover led the Seraphs with 15 points.