Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com

By Ray Hamill — After decades of struggles, a talented and determined College of the Redwoods sophomore class has helped put Corsairs football back on the map and make the program relevant again.

But they have some unfinished business to take care of before they walk off into the sunset or take their talents to the next level, which many of them will inevitably do.

On Saturday afternoon, they will play their final game for Redwoods and they are eager to go out with a bang and end an unenviable streak for the program.

The Corsairs will host a bowl game for the second straight year as they look for their first bowl game victory in three decades.

“We’re very focused on breaking that 30-year streak,” head coach Jason White said after the matchup was set. “We definitely want to get that monkey off our back.”

Their opponents on Saturday are Hartnell and the game will be played at the Redwood Bowl, with kickoff set for 1 p.m.

And for the sophomores, most of whom played in last year’s Grizzly Bowl defeat to Monterey Peninsula, getting that elusive postseason victory is something they’ve been eying since last December’s defeat.

“They have not forgotten that,” White added.

Regardless of what happens, this is a group of players — and coaches — who have had a huge impact on CR football and helped restore some pride to the program.

Together they ensured that the program’s return after a two-year hiatus has been a hugely successful one.

Over their two years together they have won 15 of 21 games (and counting), while posting back-to-back winning seasons for a team that last enjoyed one all the way back in 2001.

“Their legacy is already a done deal,” White said. “They not only brought the program back, but CR hadn’t had a winning season since 2001.”

The coaches, of course, deserve a ton of credit for that achievement too, and White and his staff have done a remarkable job, not only with recruiting but also in getting the best out of these players.

Together they brought the program back, secured a pair of elusive winning campaigns and now they want to end a way-too-long bowl postseason losing streak.

“They’re trying to add to that legacy right now,” said White, who added “I’m going to miss these guys. We’ve got one more to go and we’re going to have fun doing it.”

The class of sophomores who have changed the fortunes of a program that few local fans seemed to care about for several years before they got here includes multiple former H-DNL players.

White and his coaches have been very active recruiting locally, with players like Del Norte’s Levi Cox-Cooley and Tanner Forkner, Fortuna’s Max Hough and Ferndale’s Lane Branstetter all playing pivotal roles and all being named all-conference this year.

And the list of local players who have impacted the program goes way, way beyond that, with players like Chase Steubing, Levi Nyberg, Carlos Aguilar, Joey Quen and Drew Jensen also playing key roles over the past two seasons.

And the coaches have also done a good job bringing in the right players from out of the area, most notably players like Mason Priddy, who is a two-time all-conference player at two different positions, as well as Tyse Whigham, Jayden Sandusky and Anthony Aguirre, among many, many others.

Whether or not they can end that long bowl drought, which dates back to 1993 when White was an assistant with the team, remains to be seen, but the head coach sees a big difference between this year and last, when most of these influential players were still freshmen and experiencing their first bowl game.

“It’s a huge difference to what we went through in the bowl game last year,” White said. “We didn’t have that leadership last year.”

On Saturday, the coaches, players and community will say goodbye to a sophomore class that has helped reestablish one of the most important athletic programs here on the North Coast.

And hopefully they can do so with a victory and solidify an already impressive legacy.