By Matt Schuler
(La Verne)-The Bonita basketball program has had its share of successes, but Monday night’s 71-41 victory over West Covina at home gave the Bearcats their second back-to-back league title within a decade, and their sixth league championship in nine years.
Fittingly, it came on Senior Night .
With two games left in league, Bonita (10-0) has secured the Hacienda League title as second place Walnut (7-3) is three games behind the leading Bearcats. The win gives coach Greg Eckler and his team ten in arow since losing to Chino Hills in the prestigious Covina Tournament and Eckler could not be any more joyful about the victory.
“It feels good,” said Eckler. “A league championship always feels good. Every day we work so hard. It’s all those little things along the way that add up.”
The Bearcats have claimed Miramonte league titles in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2010, and now a Hacienda league banner in 2011. The victory tops off a pleasant decade for Coach Eckler, who is now in his ninth year with the basketball program.
The Bearcats have not only won 10 straight league games in the Hacienda, but are also 6-1 on their home court and 5-1 on the road.
As a team, the Bearcats play very unselfish basketball and garnered over 15 assist against the Bulldogs. James Northup served as the main facilitator and dished out five of them.
“I think that’s what makes us a little difficult to guard,” Eckler said. “We’re a very unselfish team. We will share it and we’ll find the hot hand.”
Northup was just one of the many Bearcats playing a pass first, shoot second mentality, finding Jordan Butler frequently on the other end. Butler splashed in four 3-pointers and finished with 18 points, three assist, and two steals. Northup had 10 points, including two bombs from behind the arc.
Garrett Pendleton, who also played quarterback for the Bearcats, finished with 10 points and five rebounds.
Zach Brungard, who served as a key play maker, added four assists to go along with six points and a couple of boards. Hustling in the post was Garrett Horine, another football athlete, who grabbed 8 rebounds and knocked in four points.
The Bearcats jumped out to a 10-2 lead and forced West Covina into a timeout with 4:23 remaining in the first. Out of the timeout, Bonita put together a 12-4 run the rest of the way and it was 22-8 at the end of the first.
“The key for us is energy and intensity,” said Eckler. “When we get that going, we can create turnovers and get out and run.”
With just over four minutes left in the second, Northup found Brungard on consecutive plays for scores, pushing the advantage to 33-8 with less than four minutes left in the second.
Butler’s three pointer at the buzzer made it a 43-16 lead at halftime.
The frustrations only continued for West Covina with 4:47 to play in the third quarter when Bulldogs Coach Manuel Lopez received a double-technical and was ejected from the game. At that point Bonita held its largest lead of 32 points (54-22).
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