Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com
By Ray Hamill — The Eureka Loggers took care of business on the field of play on Saturday night.
Now it comes down to a coin flip at the North Coast Section offices on Sunday morning to decide whether their season continues.
“I’m just dumbfounded that our whole season is coming down to this,” Eureka head coach Jason White said after Saturday’s playoff win.
The Loggers are seeded No 2 in the Division-III bracket and comfortably defeated No. 3 Las Lomas at Albee Stadium in muddy conditions, winning 21-0.
In the Division-IV semifinal in Crescent City, Fortuna senior Joey Pontes scored four touchdowns to lead the Huskies to a 30-6 win over Del Norte.
The Huskies have now won nine straight playoff games and will play for an NCS championship next weekend.
Eureka, meanwhile, lost five fumbles in the first half alone, but a dominating defensive performance was enough to see them comfortably through.
Defensive tackle Isaak Gutierrez in particular was a nightmare for the visiting Knights, and turned in what White said could have been his most dominating performance ever as a Logger on defense.
The Loggers took the lead early, driving 59 yards on seven plays and scoring on a 41-yard Zach Reed run up the middle six minutes in.
Five of their next six possessions ended in fumbles, but with a dominating defensive performance, they never really appeared in danger of giving up a score to the Knights, who failed to get a first down in either of the second or third quarters and managed just three on the night.
The Loggers opened the second half with back-to-back scoring drives to put the game away, with Alex Miller and Ryan Sylvia each scoring on TD runs.
With Cardinal Newman opting for a coin toss to decide who moves on to the CIF regional game next week instead of playing out the NCS, the Loggers’ fate will now be decided at the NCS offices at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday.
More to follow shortly on both games …
Missed ya Ray, was up in bleachers.
4 fumbles in first quarter was it?
The fumbles were really a result of the players being so amped up fighting for the extra one or two yards on a muddy field instead of securing a ball in going down… the score easily could have been in the 35 to 40 Point range had those fumbles not occurred…
After Eureka scored its first touchdown in the second half and kicked off it was like boom another turnover on the receiving team this time where they turn their back real quick and the ball hit the back side of one of their players and bounce right back to the kicker and all he had to do was fall on the ball…the ball went over 10 yards and came back to him…classic.
At 7:11 of 4th quarter, the wind hit. Then, light rain.
And let’s do give credit for the Las Lomas defense because they were pretty stout causing those turnovers they just didn’t have the offense to compete with Eureka defense…
Good pic too, old man shaky hands here took about 50 pics to get about 25 good ones, lol.
Cardinal Newman knows that a 50-50 chance on a coin flip is a better than the chance than what they have of actually beating Eureka, because they know they don’t stand a chance of beating the Loggers on the football field. Cheap way to advance, zero honor.
My thoughts exactly. Afraid to actually play Eureka. The boys did an outstanding job in the rain and mud.
There’s always a chance anything can happen player can get injured anything can happen.
We should propose why it is that they decide on a coin flip we decide we want to play the game so that means democracy doesn’t win out because it’s a tie now why would the NCS then come in and support a coin flip now that’s a conspiracy.